


Code of Conduct

by tb_ll57



Series: Code [3]
Category: Gundam Wing
Genre: Angst, M/M, Murder Mystery, Past Character Death, Past Relationship(s), Post-Endless Waltz, Preventers (Gundam Wing), Really a lot of Relationships, Relationship(s), Undecided Relationship(s)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-26
Updated: 2017-04-26
Packaged: 2018-10-23 12:08:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 73,269
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10719060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tb_ll57/pseuds/tb_ll57
Summary: He tried not to need. He really did. Maybe Trowa was figuring out that it was okay to want more than you had, to require more than what served the basic survival functions. We don’t need a house, he thought about saying, we don’t need friends if you don’t like them. But he couldn’t give up everything outside of Trowa if Trowa wasn’t standing still at the centre.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This is a direct sequel to Code of Silence, which should probably be read first in order to understand many of the references.
> 
> This fic was begun well over a decade ago, with my writing partner at the time, a lovely woman named Marsh who passed away suddenly in 2011. I have always thought I would finish this someday, but for now, as it has been for several years, it is a WIP-- many apologies.

Duo started on the house stuff by leaving brochures in strategic places around their apartment.

He ignored them at first. There was always clutter around the apartment, mostly his, and Duo would clean it when Duo had the time or was angry enough. There were magazines about house decorating in the bathroom next to the toilet, but he assumed it was some kind of new hobby, new time-passer, that Duo had gotten queerer over the years. The pristine steel doors of the fridge acquired exactly one ornament—a business card for a real estate agent. But Trowa had his dense moments, or moments where he wished he was dense enough to be oblivious. With a little studious effort, he managed to ignore it long enough to get out on a real excuse. Duo could be passive-aggressive to his heart’s content while Trowa was in Cancun.

It was good in theory. Like most theories, it flopped on execution.

Une had been passing him shorter missions, lately, but the size of the explosion was still Trowa’s problem. He was beat and he was pissy, it was raining and he hadn’t remembered to get new wiper blades before he’d left four weeks ago, but he sat in the car anyway, the windows steaming up slowly, wondering if he had it in him to go inside or if he ought to do the smart thing and get a motel room before Duo knew he was there.

They’d made promises.

Like—no stalling. No lying.

Not that Duo really expected him to keep to that last one. It was more a standard procedure. A diplomatic contract between parties.

Trowa shot at diplomats for a living, anyway. He knew how much a contract was worth.

Against his better judgement, he went inside.

He more or less recognised the floorplan. The couch was moved away from the wall to the middle of the room. There were four patches of paint where the couch had used to be, four different shades of brown or orange or something Trowa would never have dreamed of putting on a wall. But it wasn’t horrible. Once he’d come back and thought he was in the wrong unit. He hung his coat on the peg and he put his gun in the safe on the desk, and all that time there was no Duo. He made it all the way to the kitchen for a beer before Duo came out of the bedroom.

“Hey,” Trowa said. “I’m tired. Don’t talk my ear off yet.”

Duo’s face went tight. “Hey,” he said, after a pause long enough for Trowa’s nerves to grate, even if Duo was just doing what he was asked. Brilliant homecoming.

“Hey,” Trowa repeated. He flopped onto his spot on the couch and put his feet on the table. Duo’s hands were stuck deep in his pockets, and Trowa did that anyway, hard enough for dirt to fall out of the treads onto the bare wood. He drank half the beer in three swallows, and dragged a handful of estate listings to the edge of the table to use as a coaster.

Duo tugged at his braid behind his neck, and turned his back. He looked good. He was Duo, so he always looked good, but seeing him was enough for Trowa to lose the edge, at least, of his mood, to remember there was the occasional benefit to a live-in boyfriend. Like the sweet ass straining the black jeans for a moment as Duo bent to uplug the big fan from the alcove. Now there was a good theory.

"You want to eat or you need a minute?" Duo asked.

"You cooked?"

"Not yet, but I could."

Trowa sipped slow enough to actually taste the beer this time. "C'mere."

Duo obeyed, not a good sign. He was only tractable when he was spoiling for a fight. Well, Trowa was too, and he didn’t need Duo’s shit on top of his own.

"So you want a house now?" he said.

Duo blinked once, fairly naturally. "I'd like to at least talk about someplace bigger. There're some nicer apartments in there." He looked deliberately at Trowa’s coaster.

"Uh-huh." The jeans felt thinner than they looked, warm from Duo’s skin underneath, a little stretchy. Trowa curled his fingers into Duo’s inseam. "You don't want an apartment."

"It's called compromise."

"Neither one of us knows what that means."

Duo resisted frowning, but his eyebrows came together a bit.

"You already talk to an agent?" He tipped his head back for the last foamy swallow of beer. He picked up the printouts, and put the bottle on the table in their place. Duo’s eyes flicked to follow his hands.

“No,” he said. "Except to ask what areas of the city have good markets right now." It took ten seconds after that. Duo left the couch to get a real coaster from the kitchen.

"Make an appointment," Trowa replied. He flipped the corner of the packet to count the pages. A dozen, maybe, with fifteen listings on each page. Little pixellated pictures.

“Are you okay with it?"

He shrugged. "Why not?"

"Because you've lived here since you moved to the city and I get the impression you're pretty attached."

"It's an apartment.” Duo was frowning, now, and it was not his most attractive expression, even if it did resemble the face he made when he was coming. “Sure, I like it, and the neighbourhood, but I've lived lots of places."

Duo couldn’t tell if he was lying. That was the look, the narrowed eyes. It was gratifying to know he still had some secrets.

"You want pasta?” Duo asked finally. “We have pasta or maybe strip steak."

"We could order in."

"Sure. Fine." Trowa watched him bend over the desk, this time, and if he didn’t know Duo was getting peeved he’d wonder if Duo was doing it on purpose, putting ideas in his head. There were menus in his hand when he came back to the couch, held crotch-height, until he shoved them out under Trowa’s nose. "How did the job go?"

"Shitty." He bent back a page, and showed it to Duo. "I like this one."

Duo leant over the back of the couch to look at it. "It's nice,” he agreed, cautiously. “You like the ranch style?"

"I guess. I don't know. I like how this looks." It was an awkward try, reaching backward over his shoulder, he had to switch hands to do it. He cupped his palm to Duo’s cheek, and Duo relaxed, at least, into a smile. Even stooped down to kiss him, finally, which Trowa supposed he could have had at any time if he hadn’t come in on the attack. Duo’s lips were warm, like his tongue, even if Trowa almost choked himself licking it.

"I'm not scared about this, okay?” He tugged the silky tips of Duo’s fringe. “If you want a house, we'll get one."

"I know you're not scared, but I want it to be something we both do, not that you do for me."

"When you're happy, I'm happy. That's how it works."

Duo screwed his lips to the side. “Look at the rest of them,” he suggested. “I put some in the bathroom, too." He kissed Trowa firmly, and went back to the kitchen. “You want another beer?”

“Yeah.” He dropped his head to the cushions. A house. Sure. Get out of the city. Live in the desert like Joe and Beau Nobody. Then they’d get a dog, like that yappy-ass thing next door, fifteen brainless pounds of fluff. And then, hell. When you had a house and a dog, there was only one thing left, although that left the question of whether Duo had a uterus to go along with that bitch. If Trowa’d wanted to sleep with a woman, he would have.

Duo’s voice floated back with the sound of a cap popping off the bottle. "I can hear you thinking, and you're a jerk." He appeared back in the den. "You come in here in a mood and now is when you want to talk about moving. No. I don't want to do it right now. I want to wait until you're relaxed, at least." He put the beer in Trowa’s hand. "Take a shower. You'll feel better."

"Come with me.”

Duo made him wait for the answer. And that, it turned out, was the spark onto the tinder.

"You know?" Trowa shoved himself to his feet and past Duo. He slammed the bathroom door, and he locked it, too. “Forget it,” he said to the mirror, and drank his beer.


	2. One

He could remember it exactly. It was 200—or, maybe, 201. They would have been twenty-one. Twenty-one, because it had been the year of Quatre’s majority, and they’d been invited out to L4 to the Winner Estate itself, the first year there were no sisters, no aunts, no uncles. In fact, the only blond in the entire mansion was Quat himself, and it had been summer, the same beautiful summer it always was on L4.

And it had been that summer when they all suddenly noticed Duo.

Or at least, that was what Duo presumed. Heero had had a thing for him from the day they met, but that summer was different. That summer he noticed them, all of them, noticing him. Awareness was a—heady kind of thing. He didn’t like it. He felt too watched, it made him paranoid. They kept turning up in hallways for awkward private stand-offs. Heero mostly, at first, but Heero was always awkward. Quat was the one who tipped him off, blushing suddenly whenever they met and were alone. Wufei was always so correct, more polished even than Quat, who could at least be taught to burp and laugh loudly. Duo thought he was just imagining it, until he caught Wufei looking at him, always from a bowed head, sidelong, and starting whenever Duo would turn and see him there. Trowa—Trowa was the worst.

"Wait—“ Standing on the balcony, one of the dozen balconies, overlooking the positive curve of the city spread out at an aristocratic distance from the plush green Winner lawn. Trowa had been drinking, and Duo had been drinking, and then the others had gone in and Trowa had said, “Wait, are you conditioning your hair?” and grabbed Duo’s fringe between his fingers without even asking. “It smells like a frickin' strawberry. No guy should smell like that."

It was embarrassing because—it wouldn’t have been embarrassing, anyway, if it had been one of the guys in San Francisco, Jon or Bren or Purcell. It was embarrassing because Gundam Pilots, or Gundam Pilots who weren’t Duo, didn’t smell another man’s hair or touch so casually. And because he didn’t know Trowa the way he knew Heero or Quatre, and because Trowa wasn’t looking at his hair, he was looking at Duo, and it was—blatant.

"I like it," Duo had retorted, at his most pugnacious. "And for your information, you've got split ends and your hair is dry enough to start a forest fire, so take that."

Trowa’s eyes went narrow, and Duo had never noticed before that they were green, not hazel, and ringed with a dark circle around each iris. He didn’t let go of Duo’s hair, even when Duo batted at his wrist. It rasped between thumb and forefinger. "Who the hell are you fucking these days? Vidal Sassoon?"

"That is totally not your business."

"He's a fruit and he's making you into one."

It happened to be true. There was a lot about San Francisco to love, and high on the list was that none of the others were there, his supposed friends who were suddenly all looking at him the way Trowa was looking at him now, except that Trowa was going to make him do something about it, and there wasn’t anything Duo wanted to avoid more desperately than exchanging anything so unbearably personal with any one of those four men.

"I am a fruit,” he said, and put enough pressure on bone that Trowa finally lowered his hand. “And I'm fucking proud of it."

"Damn,” Trowa said, and grinned a lazy grin Duo had never seen on him before, either. “You're beautiful when you get on your high horse."

 

**

 

“We treat everything in this box as if all evidence is fresh from Forensics,” Abelman told them. “We do our own interviews and we use our own eyes. If the answers were in there, the case wouldn’t have come to us.”

Cold Case Unit was a half-hour longer commute than Preventers had been. There were no free uniforms, and there were no government-issue sidearms or in-house gyms or a swimming pool on the tenth floor. There were only seven in the squad, not the dozens Duo was used to. The break room was likely to hold day-old bagels, not fresh catered spreads from the Natural Foods. And all the detectives had come out of the local police force, every single one of them. Duo was the first and only Preventer. It was the first time he’d been resented more for that than for being Resistance, or Colonial, or even a Gundam Pilot. He’d been on the squad for two months, and they still found ways to close him out. Like not leaving him a chair at the table.

Captain Abelman, the only other one standing, noted and ignored it as he opened the two boxes on the table. “Vic’s name was Kelby Gerganas. He was murdered nine years ago. Died age fifteen. Found stabbed outside Club Exilio, a private-members club for gay sex.” He found the case file, a slim discoloured manilla folder. He opened it on the table, and gave it a shove toward Nadia. “Let’s break it down, people.”

Duo ventured closer, but Marquez beat him to it, cutting him off to lean over Nadia’s shoulder. “Prints at the scene,” Marquez said, and pulled several photographs free from the file. “Look how there’s kind of a tail on the right-side print? As if the guy was limping.”

“Or had one leg longer than the other.” Shazza shrugged off their curious looks. “It happens. Childhood illness. A lot of people who had Colony Plague—“

All eyes went to Duo, this time. He said, “Or he was carrying the body over that shoulder. Bodies are heavy, even fifteen-year-old ones.”

“Any suspects described as limpers?” Abelman asked. He took the case report Nadia handed him. “No? Well, let’s go look for ourselves. If it’s chronic, it’ll still be there. If it’s not, we’re no worse off. What else?”

“The kid had a rape exam done six months before he died,” Nadia said. She lifted a form. “At a free clinic on Industrial Drive. Rape, trauma, VD, AIDS. Says he never followed up. And there’s a statement here, but I don’t think it was ever filed.”

“If there’s a statement, there’s a cop,” Johnstad reasoned. “Who’s the reporting officer?”

Marquez’s head rose abruptly. “You tell us,” he said flatly, and shoved the file at Duo.

Abelman beat him, this time, snatching it up. He frowned deeply as he read what Marquez had. “You knew this kid?” he demanded. “When were you going to say so?”

“I don’t know him.” Duo was surprised by that. Abelman finally let him have the report, and Duo held it under his nose to read the rape statement. It was pure chicken-scratch, a kid’s unfinished script, unsteady and hurried. And underneath the statement, the signature of the reporting officer—and that was definitely his handwriting.

It came back in a rush. Took the breath right out of him. Kel, he remembered, Kel, all of fourteen, a skinny short kid with freckles on his nose and bruises on his collarbones. _Are you gonna call my dad?_

“Well?”

“Yeah.” Duo licked his lips. “Yeah, I—“

“In my office,” Abelman said, and left the table.

The others were staring at him. Duo put the file down, and licked his lips again, but they still felt dry. He didn’t let anything show on his face as he followed the captain up the short loft stairs to the offices above. Abelman was waiting for him. He shut the door, and turned the blinds, and that made Duo tense, finally. There was no invitation to sit here, either.

“I assume,” the captain said, “there’s an explanation.”

“I did not deliberately withold information.” Duo crossed his arms, despite himself. “It was nine years ago. I honestly didn’t remember him. He never filed charges, I never filed charges, the whole thing—it was one night, and I was barely older than he was. I didn’t even remember what he looked like.”

“You had a fourteen-year-old rape victim and you didn’t file charges? For all we know his rape is directly connected—“

“It was clear to me at the time that he was consenting.”

“He wasn’t old enough to consent.”

“In the Colonies—“

“We’re not in the damn Colonies, Maxwell, and I don’t give a rat’s ass if it’s different in Space. The law’s the law!”

They were both glaring. As soon as he realised, Duo dropped his eyes. A moment later, he heard Abelman sigh.

“I always thought Preventers were recruiting too young,” Abelman said heavily. “But you’re an adult now. Tell me if you made a real mistake, Maxwell, not following through on the rape, and then tell me if I should take you off this case.”

“No,” Duo said firmly. “To both. He was old enough to consent, Captain, he was old enough to know what he was doing and what kind of life he was in for. And it is different in the Colonies, sir, because in the Colonies we accept some things as pretty well inevitable, like a lonely and hurt young kid winding up dead. And that’s the first and foremost reason I left and came to Earth instead. So with your approval, I would really like to go rejoin the team trying to find out what happened to this boy, sir.”

Abelman rubbed his beard. “This is your one chance,” he finally allowed. “I don’t give two. You hear?”

“I hear.”

“I’m going to have Shazza interview you. And you’re going to keep in the background on this.”

Duo nodded, the most he could confine himself to. Abelman pointed to the door, and Duo let himself out.

The table was empty when he got back. Even the boxes were empty, the contents separated and stacked on desks in the work area. Duo kicked half-heartedly at one of the chairs, also finally empty. “Shit,” he muttered.

“Sorry.” It was Shazza. She appeared from around the corner, holding the case file still. “We already divided up prelim interviews. Everyone kind of took off.”

“Sure.” Duo forced a smile. “I assume I’ve got an assignment?”

“Going through the forensics stuff.”

“Yeah. I’ll do that.”

“On your desk.” She hesitated. The beads in her braids clacked against her cheek as she glanced up at the loft and Abelman’s office. “All clear with that?”

“Yeah.” Duo sat in one of the vacant chairs. “He’ll probably tell you, but you’re supposed to get my story.”

“Okay.” She sat opposite him. “Maxwell…”

“Office politics.” Duo made himself smile. None of them had ever actually said anything to his face, after all, which was an improvement over what it had been like starting in Preventers. “You want to do this now or later?”

“Uh, now, sure.” She left the table long enough to get a pad of paper. She held her skirt to her legs as she slid onto a chair. “So—how’d you meet the vic?”

He thought of insisting on calling the boy by name. It didn’t feel right to distance himself, since distance hadn’t been a part of the equation then. But he didn’t. There was no easy explanation for why, and even if Shazza had been nicest to him so far, that was going a little beyond reasonable expectations.

“At the club,” Duo said. “Club Exilio.”

 

**

 

“Aw, don’t, no,” Duo protested, and Trowa grinned as he waved a pantomine knife between them.

"Guess I'm not going to get a real kiss until I shave, huh," he said. He set a glass of sparkling shiraz on the counter by Duo. "Cheese-grating isn't part of your daily beauty ritual, if I remember correctly."

“Not so much.” But Duo did kiss him then, slow and thorough. "I'll catch hell at work if I come in with beard-burn."

Trowa laughed at that. “Order Greek, would you? Something with chicken.”

“Yeah.” Duo sipped his wine. “Go take a load off.”

When Trowa was feeling metaphorical—not precisely often—he liked that one, the shiraz. Most times, most moods, Duo was vodka, neat, icy cold. A shock, a grimace, and that slow burn. But there were nights when he was like that sparkling shiraz. Cork leaving the bottle like a percussive gunshot. The buzz hit the nose and the back of the tongue like acid and it was almost too dry, almost too harsh, but by the time you swallowed—the sweetness lingered just enough.

“Hey,” Trowa said, on an impulse inspired by equal parts insanity and diminished capacity. "I wasn't jerking your chain about the house. I'm good with it."

"Okay." Duo paused with the glass halfway to his lips. "I guess I'll pick up some more detailed information. There's an agency on the way home."

"Cool." He found the Greek take-out menu in the drawer and tossed it under the phone. "Some of those stuffed grape leaves, too."

"Twenty minutes, maybe."

"Good. Starved." There were house brochures for the suburbs in with the menus. He took three with him to the couch. He didn’t really intend to read them, but it probably sealed his point.

The first week after a job always itched. At least when Duo had been in Preventers there’d been the odd-shift schedule, which meant they had the occasional night and most afternoons together. Duo worked regular hours now at Cold Case. That meant long boring days, mostly. Sex on a schedule, which he hated.

He hated moving. And shopping.

The new bottle of beer came into his peripheral vision about a second before Duo’s fingers slipped in his hair. "I kept your log for you," Duo said.

"Yeah?” He swallowed a mouthful and leaned his head back into the scratch of Duo’s nails. “What'd you write?" He kind of loved that, actually. Couldn’t believe Duo was even joking about it. Couldn’t believe they’d made it that far in three months.

"I'll read it to you." Duo went to get it from the desk. He resumed his position behind the couch, just beside Trowa, leaning over so Trowa could see the pages. He really had written in it, cramping the margins the way he always did. "February 14, 7.34,” Duo read, and brushed his lips over Trowa’s ear. “Breakfast. Wanted eggs. Toasted bagel instead. Half glass of orange juice. 7.41. Drove to work. Thirty-six miles. Moderately heavy traffic. Car pulling to the right still."

He’d mostly expected the like, and had to grin for it. “How much of this is there?”

“I didn't even get to Tuesday yet." Duo turned a page. "5.32. Snooze alarm once. 5.37. Woke up for real. 5.38. Went to shower. 5.46. Finished showering. 5.53. Considered brown suit, but went with grey instead."

"Give me that." Duo held on, so Trowa yanked the book away. He tossed it across the room. Duo had a little shit-eating grin on, too. "Maybe we don't need the log any more."

"I'm all for it, though I doubt your sincerity. I wrote in pencil. You can erase whatever."

"I mean it, baby. No more journal."

He’d startled Duo. Slowly, Duo said, "Does that mean I'm just that boring now?"

"Maybe just a little. Although I guess you always were an agent of the Man.”

Duo stroked his hair again, combed it back from his forehead. "You can still surprise me."

"That a good thing?" He pulled Duo closer by the collar of his shirt. Duo was a fantastic kisser, in Trowa’s not inconsiderable experience, or maybe because of Duo’s rather more considerable practise. Even twisted all different ways his brain went as foggy as the Bay on a damp day. Duo climbed right over the back of the couch, which was interesting enough to make Trowa reconsider his opinion on the new furniture arrangement, right into his lap. He got one hand between their chins as they kissed again, as Trowa unzipped first his own and then Duo’s pants. If nothing else, they were always a good match in bed. If Trowa ever went impotent, they’d probably be sunk.

He pulled away with a groan. "I can go shave."

"I kind of like it." Duo sat up on his knees to shuck underwear. Then he backed onto the floor, shoving the coffee table out of the way. Trowa spread his legs as wide as he could. He’d probably ask for head more often if Duo wasn’t so enthusiastic when he volunteered. He didn’t even notice Duo’s fingers at work until one of them massaged his prostate.

“Enough,” he managed. “Let’s fuck.”

“Jeezus—“ Duo said, but he kicked his jeans off when Trowa pulled at them, and set his leg over Trowa’s shoulder. They didn’t have lube, but Duo had done a good job supplying spit in plenty. He slid in, and closed his eyes against Duo’s knee.

"What'd you order?" he whispered, and planted his hands on either side of Duo’s head. Duo’s body rocked with him.

"The mousaka,” Duo said, and braced himself against the leg of the couch. “Fuck. I haven't exactly been practising while you were gone, you know."

He slowed obediently. "I'll go easier if you want."

"When have I ever asked for easier?" Duo laughed. And proved it, tripping Trowa into a roll that cracked his elbow against the coffee table. Duo sat deep on him, then bounced up and down on his knees. Had never been afraid to take what he wanted, anyway. Fast and hard. He said, "I want a back porch."

"Anything." He had a disconcerting moment wondering what the hell a back porch was—some kink like reverse cowgirl or something, before he realised they were talking houses again. "Sure. Back porch."

"And a tree." Duo let out a gaspy groan and sat up straight.

"Tree, yeah. Fuck, Duo. Yeah, we can have two." He managed to free a hand from Duo’s hips to masturbate him. “Trees, and probably grass somewhere, and—“

The door buzzer went off.

"Shit," Duo spat, and started to climb off him.

"JUST A MINUTE," Trowa shouted, and yanked Duo into place so hard Duo cried out. "He can fucking wait. Come on, baby."

"Christ almighty." They were drying out, and it was starting to pinch, but Trowa didn’t need much longer, if Duo would just—and Duo did, sliding around until Trowa was in as deep as he could go and they both had their hands on Duo’s cock. Trowa hit the edge, and then it was every man for himself. When he had eyes that worked again, he saw Duo wiping come off his chin with a sheepish expression.

"Maybe one of us should get the door before he leaves," Duo said. He swung a leg over Trowa’s chest and crawled off onto the couch.

Trowa grabbed his wallet off the coffee table and stood up. He was still tingling oddly, and he walked a little left of where he meant to go before he straightened himself. He snagged his shirt closed and opened the front door.

“Sorry,” he said. He managed to hook a button over his crotch and opened the cash pocket of his wallet. "You know how it is after a long dry spell."

The teenager holding their delivery rolled his eyes. “Twenty seventy-two,” he said.

Trowa gave him thirty and took the bag. He held out his hand for change, but the kid had already turned around and was headed down the steps to his car. Trowa didn’t bother to call him back. The kid had probably earned it. It wasn’t the first time they’d traumatised a delivery boy.

Duo was spritzing the carpet with the stain cleaner. Trowa doubted they’d done any permanent damage, but he was used to it by now. He dropped the bag on the table. “You’re limping. I hurt you?”

"I'll be all right in the minute. I told you I was out of practise." Duo was just one side of grumpy about it, too, one hand to his back like he’d strained it. “Would your highness like to get silverware or will we eat with our fingers like the rustics?”

“Don’t kill the mood.” He swatted Duo on the ass and got plates and forks from the kitchen. He even remembered the napkins. "Back porch, huh?"

"I want plastic furniture."

"Plastic? Why?"

"That's what people put on porches."

"Not always. Sometimes they get wicker."

"If they're eighty-year-old ladies, yeah."

"I want a swing." He kept his eyes on the styrofoam containers. He passed Duo the olive salad.

Duo caught a drip of oil from the edge and licked his finger. "Swing,” he said thoughtfully. “Really?"

"Yeah."

He started to grin. "That's really cute."

“Shut up, asshole. Do you think I like being domesticated?"

"Yeah, I do." Duo grabbed at his crotch, and Trowa swatted his hand away. “Don’t be a jerk,” he said. “I hate you.”

"I get that vibe." But Duo was smug. He bit into a stuffed grape leaf with relish.

They ate in silence. Trowa always had a good appetite after sex. They split the last of the shiraz, sitting on the floor with the stain cleaner stench slowly fading.

"Guys are going to give you shit tomorrow,” he said. He touched Duo’s chin. There was definitely a red raw patch. “Maybe you should take the day off."

"Don't worry about it. I have make-up. What did you think I did when we were together before?"

"Make-up? You're kidding, right?"

"I aren't." Duo finished his salad and set his fork at a precise five o’clock angle. "I picked it up from my first boyfriend."

"We don't have to discuss the origins, or your sexual history."

"I wasn't going to tell you what positions we used."

Trowa reached for the Greek bread, and threw a crust at Duo’s head. Duo caught it, though.

"You used to like a little dirty talk." Duo ate the crust.

“Not when it's about your exes." He found his beer on the other side of the table by accident, lying on its side in a little puddle. That occasioned another use of the stain spray. Trowa let Duo fuss over it. "So, uh, how quickly do you think we can get this house stuff taken care of?"

"I don't know. I've never done it before." There was a short pause as Duo sponged the carpet. "Johnny said it took him a couple months when he did it. He did it on his own, though."

"Shit."

"I knew you were lying."

"What? I'm not!"

"Then what's with the attitude?" Duo tossed the sponge to the table and gathered their dishes.

“I've gotta go back out,” Trowa said. Duo went frozen. “I don't have a lot of time home."

Duo went back into motion like a robot low on battery power. He closed all the containers and put the bread back in its baggy.

"I know,” Trowa said. “I know. I'm sorry." Duo shrugged a little, a jagged little motion of the shoulders. "Two weeks. We'll find something and get the paperwork in motion. When I get back we'll move in."

"There's no rush." There wasn’t a lot left for distraction, but Duo managed, stacking plates, wiping down the table. "We can wait until you get back."

"No, I want to do this."

"We'll have to talk to the bank about mortgages and loans and shit, the agencies... Let's just wait."

"I've got some money saved. We can--shit... let's at least take a few days to look.” He hated this look on Duo. Hiding his disappointment like a kid at Christmas who didn’t get his new bike. Except they didn’t do Christmas. They didn’t do birthdays, and they didn’t do any of the things that would make up for being a completely unavoidable shit about work.

"Sure,” Duo said, and sounded like he even meant it. “We can do that. I'm just thrilled you even want to do it."

"I do. It's time. We're ready." They both had to absorb that one. Trowa chewed his lips. "Look, maybe I should talk to Une about a permanent placement. In-house."

Duo was shaking his head by the end of the sentence. "We both know she'll never let you into the light of day. And that it would be too dangerous for you if she did."

"Then maybe it's time for a change."

Duo looked at him for a long time, then. He didn’t ask anything—he knew better—but whatever conclusions he was coming to, he kept those to himself, too.

It was a bad job, Trowa thought of saying, the last one. They’d all been bad jobs lately. People dying. Trowa had nearly been one of them, this last time. It wouldn’t be a lie to say it had made him think about things, made him consider how much he really needed this life anymore. Made him consider how long he’d feel young enough to keep doing it, or if he’d be young enough still to do anything else when they finally let him quit. He wasn’t losing his edge, but the edge was losing him, a little. It just wasn’t that much fun anymore.

"I'm with you,” Duo said then. “Whatever you choose. You know that."

“I know." Duo reached across the table for his hand. There was that, too. Since the trial three months ago, things had been really good with them, good like it had never ever been. A lot of that was Duo—who had known Duo had a soft side? Or maybe people really did change. Once in a while.

"I'll talk to her on Monday." Trowa squeezed Duo’s fingers.

Duo smiled at him. “Oh, hey,” he said then, a subject change if ever there was one. "I got you something. I almost forgot about it."

"Don’t tell me you’re pregnant. You promised me you were on the pill.”

“I’ve told you how hilarious you are, right? I’ve told you?”

It was in the linen closet in the bathroom, cleverly disguised as the box for the juicer Trowa never used. It came out shrink-wrapped in plastic, and Duo produced his pocket knife to slice it open. “The TekWar Virtual Reality Home Experience,” Duo announced.

Trowa raised his eyebrow. "What's this?"

"For you. You mentioned it looked cool. Looked cool at the store, too." Duo removed a glove, a gun, and a visor from the box. There were three games in there, too. Duo offered him the gun with mock solemnity.

Trowa was dubious. Obviously he’d said it was cool; Duo wouldn’t make it up, but he didn’t remember. Games had never really been his thing. He’d never even liked training sims. "Thanks," he said, though. He gave Duo’s upturned face a quick kiss. "You going to play with me?"

"You mean am I going to beat your ass?"

"Yeah, that's exactly what I mean. Come on, let's hook it up."

They connected it to the TV in the bedroom. The shock gloves were wired, like the visor. Trowa practised firing the gun. It was pretty realistic for a game.

“Okay,” Duo said, returning to the bed with the clicker. “I got MYST 9, Twilight Voodoo, and Gangland Down.”

“They all have two names.”

“Yeah. So which one? I like MYST. I used to play this when I was high. It's awesome."

"You'd have to be.” Trowa couldn’t make heads or tails of the description on the game box. “Is there a point to this?"

"Who cares about the point?" Duo put the visor over Trowa’s eyes. “Twilight Voodoo it is. You’ll like it. It’s zombies. Shoot to kill.”

"Okay." He settled back against their pillows and rested the gun on his knee. “Crank it."

He didn’t know exactly what to expect. It opened with a movie sort of scene. Dramatic music. He was in some kind of dark warehouse—no, it was more like a basement, only full of corridors. Dripping water, big pipes overhead, mouldy smells. Dank.

Weird sounds. Kind of a—moaning. Something dragging on concrete. Trowa raised the gun.

They came out from the next corner. Two of them. Grey, shadowy—hands limp at their sides. “Stop there,” Trowa said, and trained on them. No, they were zombies, Duo had said so. They weren’t going to stop because he asked. He fired. He took them both in the chest, but they kept coming—of course. He fired for the head next. “How many bullets do I have?” he asked Duo.

“There’s a little key down in the corner that tells you.” He felt more than heard Duo’s murmur against his arm. Duo was watching the action on the TV screen as Trowa ‘lived’ it in the VR. “You’re doing good. And hey, watch out for survivors. You lose points for killing them.”

“Survivors. Okay.” He passed the twitching bodies of the first two zombies. There was another one shambling toward him. He didn’t bother with the body shots, this time, but took it out with one bullet through the neck to the brainstem. It dropped with a heavy flop. He could smell blood. Blood and rot. Rotting meat. The things had been dead a long time. Shit—there was a buttload of them coming. Swarming up the corridor. Climbing over each other. “Fuck,” Trowa said. He took out the front row with careful shots, but they were moving fast. He backed up, until he stepped on something soft, and fingers wrapped around his ankle. “Fuck!” He shot at the zombie he’d already killed before, and it dropped back to the concrete. He turned back to spray the crowd shuffling toward him with bullets, and the dull roar of their voices became shrieks. They hesitated as a group, and then they surged forward. “Fuck,” Trowa said, and put both hands on the gun handle. He fired as fast as he could pull the trigger, again and again and again—

He ripped the visor off and threw it to the floor. He was sweating. Heart racing.

“Trowa.”

The voice startled him. Duo was sitting next to him. They were in a bedroom.

“Hey,” Trowa said. “Wow. That's... yeah. Intense."

"You know where you are?" Duo asked.

"You should-- yeah. Sure, Duo. I'm right here. With you."

"Yeah,” Duo agreed. His hands were sitting passively palm-up in his lap when Trowa looked. “What day?"

"Tuesday."

“Friday," he gently corrected.

Trowa laughed, only to cover the sinking feeling in his stomach. He was in trouble, and he didn’t know why, and the not knowing was a deep scary pit. "Never could fake you out."

"You know what year it is?" Duo said.

No. He didn’t. And Duo didn’t look right, too—old. Too old. In blue, and Trowa had never seen him in blue, just that old priest costume, the red turtleneck—

"Hell, yeah,” he said, into the pause that had gone too long. “I know what year it is. What's with you?"

"Tell me the year, Trowa." Speaking in a low voice. Talking him down. Trowa recognised it, and it irritated him, and it frightened him, somewhere in the gut.

"I'm getting a beer,” he said, before he realised he didn’t know if there was a kitchen here.

"Trowa." Duo restrained him very carefully with a hand on his knee, unthreatening but firm. "If you don't know the year, that's okay. Let's sit and talk through it."

"One minute I was playing the game and the next... You remember what it was like to fly Heero's suit?" He couldn't remember the name. Or why Heero’s suit was different, except it was… "I'm tired,” he said. “That's all. I was on a shuttle for a day and a half and you know I could never sleep on shuttles."

"Yeah, they mess with me too." Duo took his hands. That was oddly personal, for how well they knew each other. Heero was right. Duo was weird. He was rubbing Trowa’s fingers, the backs of his hands. He was cold, though. "You remember what happened to Heero's suit?” Duo said. “Completely busted. And Preventers took it to destroy it, but you and me, and Quatre, we went out to that beautiful field out in South America, and we blew our own suits. Deathscythe, and Sandrock. Heavyarms."

"I remember that. Yeah." Two weeks ago. Quatre was already back on L4. He kept promising they could join him soon, soon, soon. Trowa didn’t believe him, really.

"Heero, he's back on L4, right now. Visiting Quatre. For the ceremony. Quatre just got moved up from Vice to Senior Foreign Minister. He said a heart attack's not as good as a vote, but he'll still take it."

Foreign Minister? Relena Peacecraft was Foreign—

Trowa exhaled. "I don't think I'll ever get my mind around Quatre in the Minister's Mansion."

He saw it. Plain as daylight. Duo was relieved, and Trowa had no idea why.

"One mansion's about as good as the next, I guess,” Duo said, and didn’t miss a beat, anyway. “What I wanna know is how he'll get the old man smell out of it, now Tanner's gone."

"I don't think you want me to answer that, baby." Duo laughed, and Trowa leaned his head on Duo’s shoulder. He had a headache, suddenly. He closed his eyes and rubbed them. "Can you take a couple of days off?” he asked. “Househunt with me?"

"Absolutely. I'll call in."

"They won't bust your ass?"

"Baby, you would not believe the benefits I have with this job. Preventers could learn something about employee satisfaction. I had sick days after three weeks."

"They hiring?"

"I'll put in a good word for you."

"Good. I'll hold you to that." A stabbing pain behind his eye stopped him from joking more. "I'm going to shower. You want a turn with the game?"

“You know what, and don't get mad at me here, but I would totally love a bath. Wanna share?"

"Bath?" He was being—not manipulated. But there was still something wrong with Duo’s expression, trying to lead him, but he didn’t know why, didn’t know what Duo was getting at. "You mean like you and me, naked in the water?"

"Exactly what I mean."

"Yeah.” Duo squeezes his fingers. “I can do that."

"Excellent." Duo kicked the afghan over the gun from the game. Trowa noticed, but Duo was taking off his clothes again, and then he was kissing Trowa, and there were better things to think about. His headache was going away, too. Duo even left the sheets all messed up when they left for the bathroom.

 

**

 

Duo hated the ranch entirely. The townhouses were all fine, but they weren’t much different from Trowa’s condo, and Trowa didn’t want to have to climb stairs every time they went to bed. They saw a couple of pre-fab houses in the suburbs, but none of them had yards, and Duo wanted a yard. He did like the farmhouse they were in currently, but it was kind of out of the way. They’d been talking about getting closer to the Bay, but there were fifteen acres out the back way, and they were right by the highway, but it still felt like the country.

“It’s not worth what they’re asking,” Trowa said, appearing from the kitchen. “And the back porch is rotten.”

“There’s room in the budget. It’s still not as much as that two-story with the garage.”

“I don’t know if we really want a fixer-upper.” Trowa glanced back for their agent, but she was on the phone in the den. “What’s up with you? You haven’t even been paying attention the last couple hours.”

Duo stopped fingering the floorboards, and stood. “Don’t freak or yell at me for not telling you. Promise.”

Trowa promptly looked wary.

“Addison called,” Duo said. “I agreed to meet him for dinner.”

"Addison?” Trowa jerked his eyes to the side, away from Duo. Duo hated when he did that; he knew it was so he wouldn’t be able to see Trowa’s face, Trowa’s expression, and Trowa knew that he knew, but still did it, and it was still, damn it, effective. “What in hell for?"

"Well, I never really thanked them appropriately, things kept coming up. You don't just send a fruit basket after a man clears you of six murders." The agent had finished her phone call and was hovering just out of what might generously be called earshot. Duo pretend to be absorbed in the brick hearth.

"So when's this dinner?" What he wasn’t hiding was his scepticism. Trowa didn’t like Addison, even if Duo had sort of allowed himself to forget how much.

"Well... tonight." He took Trowa by the elbow and made a vague gesture that might have been showing him the chimney and might have been trying to get Trowa to look directly at him again. "It was last minute, he has a free night, it's just him, not Kiplis, it's a nice steakhouse but nothing, like, not suits or tuxes, half eight..."

"Why not Kiplis too?" was all Trowa asked.

"She's getting a chemical peel."

“Ouch." Trowa was chewing on the inside of his mouth. "I'm not wearing a suit."

"And you don't have to, that's the beauty of it." He was so relieved Trowa was agreeing that he didn’t even try to wheedle him into a sport coat. “It’ll be fine. Really. Thank you.”

“Don’t push it.” Trowa ran a finger over the mantel and made a face at the thick layer of dust he collected. “This place is a dump.”

“It’s not a dump.”

“Who doesn’t clean before showing their house?”

“The owner died. The nephew is selling it.”

“When did you hear that?”

“You were being snotty about the basement.” Duo went back to the porch door. “There’s a dairy farm at the end of that. We could walk there.”

“Why would we walk there?”

“There’s a vegetable garden, and all those trails out there, and the woods, and there’s the state park up the road.”

“And?”

“There’s chickens. We’d have eggs.”

“Chicken coops have all kinds of diseases in them.”

"I'll cook you fresh eggs every morning," Duo said, trying not to sound irritated.

"Eggs come from the grocery store and too many eggs will give me a coronary."

“You're a jerk," he said flatly. "You could go running every morning without having to drive to a path."

"In the horse and chicken shit."

"So this was the plan? Convince me you were sincere about the house hunting and then crap all over everything we looked at. Brilliant. Superbly executed."

Trowa rolled his eyes, none too subtle. "Have I said no, baby?"

"Do you have to? Now I will, like you knew."

"Jesus, what happened to your sense of humour? It's fine. Great. I love it." Trowa was grinning at him. Duo crossed his arms over his chest—just sheer couldn’t help himself, even knowing he looked a fool.

"Don't be an ass."

"Don't me be an ass? Don't me be-- ohhh, you are so sleeping on the couch,” Duo said, stung. “For a week."

Trowa scoffed. "You'll starve."

"Have fun masturbating to cheap news-stand porn."

Trowa laughed. His hands slid under Duo’s coat and down his trousers in the back, and he kissed Duo firmly on the mouth. Duo tried to keep his side turned to the estate agent, not sure if she was looking but pretty sure she would see if Trowa went any further toward undressing him in public. Trowa didn’t let him squirm away, though, and kissed him until Duo finally stood still for it, resigned. He smoothed the lapels of Trowa’s jacket and rested his head there.

"Sorry,” he said eventually. “I'm being a bitch. Work kind of sucks this week. I'm letting it get to me."

"Quit," Trowa shrugged.

"You don't just quit when it bites a little."

“You could."

"I've never in my life."

“Maybe it's time."

"I said I don't want to quit, Trowa!"

Trowa’s nostrils flared in a hard exhale. "Okay, okay. I just don't like to see you getting this worked up."

"Should have thought of that before you started stalking me."

"Are you ever going to let that die?"

"I wouldn't count on it, no.”


	3. Two

“Buttplug,” Trowa guessed.

“Shut up.”

“Cock ring? Ball weights?”

“Ball weights?” Duo flipped on the signal a precise ten metres before the turn lane. “When I said I’d get you a treat I was thinking like ice cream after dinner.”

“If you think I’m going to behave for ice cream, you can think again.”

“Jesus, please tell me this is you getting it out of your system.” Duo braked hard, lining them into the exact centre of a parking spot at the last freaking row. Duo always drove like a grandpa who’d had a mobile suit back in the day. “I’m not going to bribe you. Be nice because he did a great fucking thing for me, for us.”

“I said I would,” he objected. “Take a fucking joke. Why are you so nervous?”

“Just god-damn behave.”

It was crowded in the lobby. Trowa had been in some swanky joints, between dinner with Quatre and the occasional upscale client. Generally he didn’t see the point in paying four figures for a cut of beef he could buy at the store for ten bucks. It was a lot of old folks standing around, and it must have been prom night, because there was a group of bleach-blonde, overly tanned teenaged girls in slutty dresses hanging out in a corner like a display at a low-end lingerie store. Trowa scanned for Addison’s dark head, and totally caught Duo checking his hair in the reflection of the giant fish-tank wall.

“You look hot,” Trowa assured him.

“There’s a difference between hot and classy.” Duo tugged at his blazer. “Should I button it?”

“There he is.” Standing at the bar. Displaying, probably self-consciously, the difference between hot and classy. His suit cost at least as much as Duo’s car. “I probably paid for that,” Trowa muttered.

“What?”

"Nothing." He wrapped his arm tight around Duo’s waist. Addison had seen them. Duo’s hello wave was just a little too enthusiastic. “Do you have the heat for him?”

That, at least, put Duo in a better mood. “Is that what your problem is? You’re jealous?”

“Do I have reason to be?”

Addison had made it through the crowd to them. Duo pulled Trowa forward to meet him, then pushed him back so he could embrace Addison. Which was fine, except then Addison made to hug Trowa, who swayed out of reach on pure instinct. “Oh,” Addison said. “Right. Sorry.” He extended a hand instead. Safe. Trowa shook it briefly.

"It's great to see you both,” Addison said. “You look well."

"We're great, yeah,” Duo answered. “House hunting."

“Very domestic.” Addison was all big smiles. His hand was definitely on Duo’s shoulder. “Hey, if you’re interested, I've got an ex in the real estate business. He was a crappy boyfriend, but he's a terrific agent."

Oh, so he was gay. Trowa looked sharply at him. "We've got it covered, thanks."

Duo gave Trowa a sharp look of his own, when Trowa yanked him back. "Actually,” he said, “I think we're down to our final three. Unless you liked that one with the big balcony in back."

Trowa smiled tightly. "Anything you want, baby."

Oh, because he had no cause to be jealous, right. No cause by the name of Heero Yuy, and for that matter Johnny Cuartero, and if he wanted to keep a strict tally he could throw Zechs Merquise and half of San Fransisco’s queer community in there.

Fine. A third. Maybe.

Addison’s eyebrows were on their way to his hairline. He broke the awkward silence with a big inhale. "Well, order some drinks, and I'll let them know we're all here."

"He's cruising you," Trowa said.

"He is not. What do you want to drink?" Duo nudged a prom queen out of his way and headed for the bar.

"Beer."

"Yeah, but what kind?"

"Surprise me."

Duo ordered two Becks darks, and left at least forty percent on tip. Trowa did not try to correct him. “Come on, let's go.” Duo shoved a bottle into Trowa’s hand. “And remember you're not a dog and you don't need to piss on me, okay? I'm pretty sure everyone in here gets it. And don’t make faces at me."

"Fine, fine. I'll be a perfect little boy scout."

It was a good table. Not the best table, which meant either Addison couldn’t get the best or didn’t want them to be seen together at the best. Trowa couldn’t blame him. But Duo was acting impressed, and it put them next to more of that stupid fish tank business, which at least cut them off from the rest of humanity. Their waiter set them up with menus and draped their napkins over their laps. So damn classy it hurt.

“So you’re over in the regular police force, right?” Addison asked.

“Cold Case Unit, yeah.” Duo’s foot bumped Trowa’s. “About two months now.”

“How do you like it? That’s probably real detective work, right? Even more than Preventers.”

“Yeah, definitely. Slower pace. And results. That’s kind of nice. Case is open, we shut it.”

The waiter was back, filling their water glasses. “Any appetizers this evening?” he asked them.

“The mussels are great, if you like seafood.” Addison smiled at Trowa. Trowa didn’t return the gesture. “Or the lobster and crab dip.”

“I was just thinking of the crab dip.” Duo touched the back of Trowa’s hand. “Tro? Crab dip okay?”

“It’s fine.” Trowa wanted to be just about anywhere else. Rwanda was warm this time of year. He’d even take downtown L1.

And neither of the men sitting across the table were making it any easier. Addison sipped his water, and Trowa sat looking at him wondering what the hell he was doing with them. Duo had some strange ideas, but that didn’t mean anyone else shared them. Taking an ex-client out for dinner made as much sense as Mister Global Happy Earth Environmentalist Duo Maxwell agreeing to meet him in a steak house.

Addison said, "So, Trowa. How's your work?"

"Dull as dishwater, Marc," he said blandly.

Duo added, "He was gone for four weeks. Heading out again in a couple of days, actually, which is why the rush on the house hunt."

"Busy season."

There was a little comfort in imagining all the ways he knew to make Addison bleed. "You too, huh?" he said.

"Oh, Jesus, yeah. I've got four cases right now, and Ruth has another three. Even with the juniors, it's a heavy load for us. I don't know what it is about the spring that brings out the crazy in people."

"I read in the paper you're defending Charley Hurtz," Duo offered.

"Between you and me, that's a sinking ship," Addison answered, with some of that self-deprecating humour Trowa supposed was meant to be charming. "And to top it off, our top private investigator went on maternity leave, and seriously, her replacement is like fifteen years old. It's hard to trust someone who doesn't physically remember the war, you know?"

Ohhh. That did not make Trowa happy. "Too bad Duo's not looking for a job," he interrupted flatly.

Duo kicked his foot, this time. "I don't really think he was asking."

"No, although I'm sure you're qualified.” Addison grinned at them. “Hell, both of you are, I guess. I guess it doesn't get more experienced than a Gundam Pilot and a Preventer."

"I'm going to the can." Trowa shoved his chair back into the fish wall. Duo was face down in his beer. Addison held onto the pleasant expression, but he didn’t ask Trowa to stay, either.

The bathroom was all panelled wood and mood lighting. It was also a vacuum of silence, free of all the chatter from the restaurant. Trowa locked the door, and turned on the faucets over both the designer sinks, just because he could. Plugged the drains with the super-thick paper towels, and watched the water level rise slowly.

Stood there wishing for the days when Duo had been so far in the closet that Trowa didn’t get invited to dinners out with ex-lawyers. In those days, he’d be snug in his car right now, staring through the windows with binoculars like the obsessive, possessive— he would not use the word _stalker_. That was Duo’s word, and one day he’d stop using it like it was dirty--

Because a man could long for that kind of simplicity. Everything made sense from the outside. The closer you got to the centre the more the entropy ate at everything until you didn’t even know what words to let past the gritted teeth--

Duo had fought for them. Duo had been fighting for them even when he broke it off with Trowa a year ago, he could understand that now. Duo was not going to dump him for the first halfway interested geek who waltzed in waving a fat pocketbook. Duo did not cheat. He might have failed once, and Trowa could think what he liked when he was pissed, but Duo did not do betrayal, and he wasn’t going to start for a nobody like Marc Addison. However grateful he was for a lawyer who’d believed his story.

But if Addison so much as touched Duo accidentally, they were going to have a little talk. Springing a fucking job offer over dinner. That did not make him happy. Not with either of them. Cold Case might be a come-down after Preventers, but no way in hell was Duo going to shuffle his skinny ass off to those over-privileged stuffed shirts who didn’t know a Gundam Pilot from a car mechanic. They had no idea who Duo really was. Duo had no idea who Duo really was, half the damn time.

He dunked his head under water in the sink, and gave serious thought to just waiting to drown.

He was more relaxed when he made his way back to the table. It didn’t thrill him to see Duo and Addison with their heads together over the stupid crab dip. But Duo outright lit up when he saw Trowa coming back. He felt a little bad about that. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d walked out without telling Duo he meant to. Probably he should work on that.

He cupped the back of Duo’s head lightly, then resumed his chair. "Sorry."

Duo’s anxiety level visibly ebbed. He even took Trowa’s hand under the table. "No problem,” he said. “Saved you some." He pushed a little china plate of fancy crackers at Trowa.

"So what'd I miss?" He ignored the silver spoon and dug a cracker straight into the dip. Even used a finger to shove a chunk of lobster onto the cracker. Dared Addison to say a word.

Addison rose to the challenge. Didn’t even look ruffled. He said, the picture of congeniality, "Turns out Duo and I are fans of opposing teams in the semi-finals."

"And by 'opposing fans',” Duo added, “he means he's a loser, and I stand a good chance of earning money off him."

"How much did you bet?" Trowa asked. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and drank half his beer.

"Fifty on the Giants going 5 to 1 or better, and another fifty on Manuel Perez scoring three home runs in the game Friday."

Trowa smiled, through sheer effort. "You're going down, Addison."

"Oh, I like my odds."

Duo squeezed his hand. Squeezed again, and then just held him tightly.

 

**

 

He didn’t hear the knock. He did hear the slight shuffle of boots on carpet, the last vestige of an entirely different set of trained nerves, and looked up to see Wufei come in with the tea tray.

“You’re the maid, now?” Quatre asked him. “You’ll need a different uniform.”

Wufei performed a little curtsey and set the tray right atop the report Quatre was reading. “I’m not wearing an apron,” he said. “Stop fidgeting with that paper. You haven’t eaten since breakfast.”

Not a maid, but a dedicated nanny. Quatre had made it through a vote, a conference call, and a committee meeting that all ran over by an hour, which meant he’d missed lunch but had barely had time to notice it. He had managed to down a nutrient shake on his way back to his office, where his aides had left a mountain of briefs for him to read. Wufei had been at his side, or at least outside his door, through all of it, a statue in a corner with his hands locked behind his back as he observed everything without remark. But when he judged it had all gone on long enough, suddenly he’d be stepping forward, so smoothly polite that Quatre’s guests hardly ever realised they were being tossed out without ceremony.

In any event, Quatre was hungry, and the kitchen had supplied an entire pot of Stilton with the fruit. Quatre dug up a finger of it to suck on.

“Sugar?” Wufei asked. He dripped cream into Quatre’s cup and placed it at his elbow. He took his own cup black, and dragged a chair to Quatre’s desk to sit.

"Is it dark out yet?" Quatre asked. He managed to get the cheese on an apple slice, this time, and burrowed back into his chair cushions.

"Ten more minutes. They shifted sunset mode up an hour."

"Oh, they couldn't be more absurd if they tried."

Wufei did not relax, though he seemed fairly settled, for once. They’d had a long shuttle trip the night before, coming back from viewing the rebuilding in the L5 cluster. "They can always be more absurd," he said dryly. “Wise men don’t tempt fate.”

"Ha." That tickled him. Quatre sipped his tea, then planted his hands behind his head and closed his eyes. He meant to compose a reply, honestly, but the swirl behind his own eyelids kept him occupied.

"Tired?"

He sighed. "Mentally or physically?"

"Either. Both."

"Relena's coming tomorrow."

He sensed Wufei’s nod. The tea tray made subtle clinking noises as the other man served himself. "You must be looking forward to that."

"Yes. A little draft of some very welcome sunshine." He rubbed his face, and forced his eyes open. "Do me a favour. Look at the ring."

A single black eyebrow climbed above the other. But he took the box when Quatre fetched it from his drawer. He tilted it under the desk lamp. "It's beautiful,” he said at last. He closed the lid with a snap and set it between them. “You're proposing?"

"We've been discussing it. If you count all our dates, we’ve been together nearly two years. There seems no reason to avoid a formal declaration.” He aligned the box with the edge of his desk, fussing and knowing it. He made a little face and picked up his tea instead. "It isn't too big? She doesn't like big jewellery."

"It's very tasteful. Why would you be worried about this?"

"I don't know. Not worried, precisely."

"What then?"

Not an easy thing to answer. In truth, he didn’t really doubt her acceptance. They were very compatible, they’d proved that, and it was an excellent match. Relena was strong, but feminine, elegant despite her youth. She was a regular reference in fashion magazines that admired her good taste and simplicity. She was universally known, and still respected, even if she now downplayed her role in the war and in the Barton Rebellion. The name Mariemaia Barton had all but vanished from public memory, but Relena couldn’t attend so much as a luncheon without being recognised. She was loved, but she wasn’t just a figurehead. She had served two full terms as Vice Foreign Minister, and she was a frequent consult on all sides of the political divide. She had her own fortune, an inheritance from her adopted parents the Darlians and a considerable pension from the Sanq Republic, who still loved their princess even if she had abdicated in favour of elections four years ago. And even if she hadn’t had those qualities, they did get on very well, and he was extremely grateful for that. She was kind and insightful, and if he’d once thought she might still prefer Heero Yuy, who was rather more—everything, really, than Quatre Winner, his one advantage was that he knew what he wanted from her, and Heero never had. They would have a good life. They would have a good marriage. He had no misgivings.

But he’d had that ring in his desk for two months; and the time had never felt right.

“Quatre?”

"I got a call from Temple Mayfield yesterday," he said.

Both of Wufei’s eyebrows went up this time. Temple had single-handedly convinced Quatre to run for Vice Minister, three years ago. Temple had single-handedly convinced half the parliament to run. He was energetic, and exhausting, but he was pushing a progressive agenda and achieving his goals. He was the kind of man who would never have had a place under Romafeller, and he was dead set on making up for the lost time.

"Something coming to a boil?" Wufei asked.

"He wants to meet with us tomorrow. Both Relena and I. I think he wants her to run."

"Run for what?"

"Senate." Quatre loosened the knot of his tie and pulled it off over his head. “It’s got to be Senate. The Western European representative has the lowest popularity rating in the hemisphere, and his junior is too inexperienced. It would be child’s play.”

“Will she run?"

"She claimed she didn't want to be involved in politics anymore."

"You're not so sure that's true?"

"I don't know. It's already so hard to see each other. I hate having to schedule and re-schedule. It would be twice as difficult..." He exhaled through his teeth and glanced up at Wufei.

Who sipped his tea, and said, "Tell her not to."

Quatre blinked first. "I begin to understand why your romantic ventures never went anywhere."

Wufei coloured. "Excuse me?" When Quatre cracked a grin, Wufei flapped a hand at him, and conceded the point. "I don't suppose she'd actually sit still for that."

"I think it's what they call a deal-breaker." His eyes fell on the ring box, half-hidden by his tie now. He grabbed it off the desk and stored it in his pocket. "Enough of that. What did you do today?"

Wufei obligingly followed the subject-change. "Terrorised the help. Apparently. Miriam claims I glower too much.”

“You do.”

“Your sister finds fault with everything."

"That's because there's always faults to find.” For particular instance, Wufei had been a member of Quatre’s household staff for three months, and had yet to realise that Miriam’s disapproval stemmed directly from his continued effort at ignoring her existence. “She’s going to Paris in a few days,” Quatre said idly. “If you’re not nice, I’ll send you with her.”

“Which of us is that meant to punish?” Wufei sniffed at his threat, and helped himself to the Stilton. "She needs a job. The Security Council has a position opening."

That was a new development. “How did you hear that?”

“Staff talk in hallways, too.” Wufei’s eyes drifted away from Quatre to the wall, a sign Quatre had come to recognise as Wufei’s cure for too much presumption. "She's qualified. I think you should consider it."

It did go beyond the bounds of the rules Quatre had laid out, when he’d brought Wufei into his life. He was encouraged that Wufei would venture it. He wasn’t sure it was the right time for that, either, but he had always expected that one day soon Wufei would begin to chafe at the many restrictions Quatre had mandated for him. Three months was longer than he’d imagined.

It had been a hard road for them both. In the wake of Duo’s trial, everything that had seemed so dramatic—traumatic—so insurmountable—had settled, slowly. They’d all had to relearn a bit about reality. Except for Quatre and Wufei. It was only fair; Quatre had appointed himself to the task of _rehabilitating_ Wufei, but he’d done it without any idea of the mechanics. Even when he was trying his hardest not to, Wufei fought him. Quatre had used all the leverage he’d had. Daily, hourly reminders that it was Quatre alone standing between Wufei and a lifetime in prison. Constantly holding over him the debt he owed Duo Maxwell, who had only asked that Wufei stop.

He had seen the crime scene photographs. He’d forced Wufei to relive every murder until he could recite them himself. Perhaps if Quatre had really understood that, before taking on that—in hindsight—ridiculously arrogant notion of rehabilitating Wufei—he might at least have had an intelligent sense of trepidation about the venture. So much of Wufei was smooth surface and touch-me-not. It was hard to even imagine someone like Wufei would feel moved to go on a very brutal, very thoughtfully planned and executed killing spree. Perhaps even Wufei had found it hard to conceive. He struggled so much to put it into words, into a context that bore any small relation to the reality Quatre, at least, had thought he was living, a reality where very little was so bad any more that it needed the vengeance of one man to correct the balance. The murders were the result of a hideous emotional cocktail-- frustration, rage. Impotence. And, at the core, self-importance. Somehow Wufei believed—he suspected Wufei might always have believed, even as a teenager fighting a guerrilla war from the cockpit of a Gundam built by dozens of other people, dozens of adults with a far more mature understanding of what injustice really was—that he, that only he, could right the universe of its wrongs. None of that fundamental element of his character had changed, and Quatre knew it. He just didn’t know if it was Wufei’s failure, or his, having set himself as Wufei’s jury and judge. Self-importance was at least something it appeared they shared in quantity.

Perhaps—he ought to have left Wufei to face a real court. He might never convince Wufei that murdering criminals had been evil, but he could have left Wufei to the shame of public censure.

Shame. There was one tool in Quatre’s favour. Wufei might never accept that the act of murder he’d perpetuated nine times was wrong, but that he’d let Duo take the responsibility for his acts: there was immense shame in that. Wufei had claimed to him, multiple times, that he’d always intended to stop, that the final murder, the one Duo had discovered and been blamed for, had been rife with clues that would expose Wufei. Quatre did not believe that. He didn’t believe it, and he had yet to make Wufei admit it, that he had never indended to stop, and had certainly never indended to be caught. A man who did not feel guilt or regret had no reason to stop.

A man who suffered shame at his own cowardice did. It wasn’t emotionally satisfying, it wasn’t the humanly emotionally satisfying end Quatre had hazily, naively predicted would come of rubbing Wufei’s nose in his own mess, but it was what that mess had cleaned up to. Wufei had actively blamed Duo, and actively allowed Duo to knowingly sacrifice himself. Quatre couldn’t browbeat Wufei into accepting anything but that fact, so that was the weapon he’d used. He’d kept them isolated, kept them locked away together in the hope that Wufei would come to respect and accept his judgment, in the fear that any distraction could be all the reminder Wufei needed that there were no physical bonds to his servitude. And he still didn’t know if he’d done right, or done enough. Wufei was never far from him; he didn’t even carry a weapon now. He didn’t even hold a paid position in Quatre’s employment. It was supposed to be degrading, it was supposed to be a humbling, even humiliating dependency, the best plan he’d been able to cobble together out of the very few clues he’d gleaned from a man who had somehow become quite accustomed to living in a lie with no apparent contradiction.

But that didn’t mean Wufei wasn’t waiting for the chance to be done with his sentence, regain control over himself and choose his own direction.

He would get his chance, if Quatre married Relena. They didn’t much like each other. Neither spoke a word against the other, but he knew Relena was waiting for him to choose between them. So was Wufei.

"Did you think about it today?"

Wufei answered just as he always did, grave-eyed and quiet. "I think about it every day."

"And are you thinking about it any differently?"

"It's complicated. But yes."

"Is that enough?" Quatre searched his face.

"I think,” Wufei said then. His hands were tense. “It's time to… stop thinking about it every day."

He really was testing the boundaries. Quatre didn’t dare put up too much resistance. He rubbed his mouth, and answered, at last, "Only if that is enough."

“I'm not going to do it again. Ever. It's not my—right.” Wufei’s eyes dipped low. “The consequences are too great."

“Wufei,” he began.

And never finished. This time, he heard the knock. Wufei half-rose, head twisting about.

“Quatre.” It was Relena, hesitating in her entrance. “And Wufei. Hello.”

“Hello.” Quatre blinked away his surprise. “I thought you weren’t due ‘til tomorrow.”

“I wasn’t. I hope it’s not—“

“It’s fine.” He moved from the desk the same second as Wufei decided to stand. Now all three of them were hesitating.

Wufei drew a deep breath, and patted Quatre’s shoulder. "I'm going for a run,” he murmured. “Have a good evening." He inclined his head to Relena as he passed her. “Hello,” he said. “And good-bye."

 

**

 

The third time Trowa made a face and cracked his neck, Duo decided to say something. “Headache?” he asked quietly.

“A real screamer.” Trowa flexed his hands on the wheel, then dropped the right one to the shift. Duo caught it halfway, and carefully pinched the webbing between thumb and forefinger.

Trowa glanced at him. "That one of your secret, magic, health food cures?"

He was mostly smiling. "Shiatsu, asshole," Duo retorted. “Watch the road.” He made it to a count of ten, and released the pressure. "Thanks for the effort tonight."

"Sure thing, baby."

"Sorry you got a headache. I hope it was the beer, not Marc."

"You going to work for them?" Trowa asked. He hit the turn signal left-handed and pulled into the turn lane for their highway exit.

"Why would I?” Duo said, irritated. “I have a job. I like my job."

"So what was that all about? Coz I gotta tell you, it wasn't too subtle."

Only Trowa could have been on full receiver for all the signals, and got every single one of them wrong. Duo exhaled hard and manipulated the joints in Trowa’s long fingers. "I was thinking... they really do need someone, at least for a couple of months. You said you were going to talk to Une about, you know, cutting back. This could be something good to fall back on."

That got him a slow blink and a mile-long stare. "You want _me_ to go work for Addison?"

"I don't want you to go work for him, I just think it's an option."

"So retire from Preventers?"

"If you did. I just thought-- that maybe if you knew there were options." Trowa took his hand back for the turn as the light went green. "And you know them,” Duo said. “I thought it would be more palatable."

"They'd never hire me."

"Yes, they would."

"Une won't accept my resignation."

There was no answer for that. In the three months Duo had known the truth about Trowa’s job title he hadn’t found out any more than that. Trowa didn’t offer, and he knew better than to ask. They didn’t talk about work. They never had, or not since the very beginning, anyway, when Duo had imagined there’d be a lot more talking about everything. And toward the end, the first ending, it had seemed like Trowa never opened his mouth except to tell Duo to shut up already. Stop asking for so damn much.

He tried not to need. He really did. Maybe Trowa was figuring out that it was okay to want more than you had, to require more than what served the basic survival functions. We don’t need a house, he thought about saying, we don’t need friends if you don’t like them. But he couldn’t give up everything outside of Trowa if Trowa wasn’t standing still at the centre. And it had been one thing when he’d thought Trowa was off running dirty money or drugs or who the hell knew what, even if it ran directly counter to what Duo had dedicated himself to wiping off the street. He knew who Trowa was, and the person Trowa was was the person he’d turned out to be all along, except that he’d been lying about it—

And there was a shitload of backstory with Une that Duo still didn’t know, except that he knew some of it was sexual, and some of it was undoubtedly emotional, but Duo honestly hadn’t thought she would deny him the opportunity to live a normal life.

“I talked to her,” Trowa admitted, his voice blank like his face. "Last month."

"About quitting?”

"Yeah."

"You never mentioned. Maybe I should keep a damn log on you."

Trowa tried to laugh it off. It was their mode of operation, lately, and if it was about more than the stupid house crap, at least that finally made sense. "I've got a drawer full of blank ones if you want."

Trowa missed the shortcut back to their apartment. Duo watched the street go by.

“You're mad now?" Trowa said.

"No."

"What'd I do wrong?"

"I don't know. Nothing."

"Bullshit."

“Don't start anything, okay? It was a nice night."

“Fine." Trowa took his hand, this time. “I’ll—I could—“ He glanced in the rearview. “Why didn’t you tell me I missed the street? Jesus, sometimes I don’t—“

Duo saw the car coming a second before Trowa. Trowa punched the gas, but they only had a second. The car hit them right behind the front seat, and everything jerked hard to the right while they skidded off away from the impact. Duo cracked his head on his window. They wrenched to a stop almost immediately, but the echo of the impact kept ringing in his ears.

"Fuck!” Trowa said. Duo freed a hand from the dash to put his palm to his head, right as it began to hurt. “Did you see that?" Trowa went on, twisting to look at him straight-on. "Fucking Ozzie pricks. You okay, Maxwell?"

Shit. Holy shit. Duo checked his hand. Blood dripped into his eye. He said, "You're hallucinating."

Trowa was staring at him. Then suddenly he was moving again, turning the dead engine to park and snapping on the map light. "Let me see."

"Are you okay?" Duo asked.

"I’m okay. Are you bleeding?"

His head had broken the window. He couldn’t twist enough to see the backseat, but the other car was visible out the windscreen. They’d turned nearly one-eighty after the hit. Duo mopped at his forehead, then just pressed his palm to it. "I'll go see about the other driver."

"Don't. Just sit here. I'll go." Trowa grabbed his mobile from the floor and passed it to Duo. "Call the cops. And an ambulance." He hesitated. “Stay put.” And he was out of the car. There were other vehicles stopping near them. Christ, they were in the middle of an intersection. Everything had stopped.

He left the mobile on his seat. Shattered glass spat over his arm and legs as he opened his door. It at least opened. The back seat was completely crunched in.

Trowa was crouched by the open driver’s side of the car that had hit them, a nice car, a nicer car than Duo’s, except for the front bumper and the hood smashed. Duo pulled on the passenger side and crawled in over the bucket seat. It was a fucking teenager. Was. Now he was just a panicking, bleeding mess. Trowa was holding his own sweater to the kid’s forehead.

"He didn't have a seatbelt on,” Trowa said. “The ass."

Duo checked the kid’s chest for steering wheel impact. “Anything hurt besides the head? Kid, honey, tell me your name.” He opened the kid’s shirt. He looked all right, some bruising getting ready to blossom over the sternum. “What’s your name?”

“Nassir,” the teenager finally answered. “Shit, I hit your car. I was changing my iPod--”

“It’s okay,” Duo said brusquely. “My name is Duo. I’m not going to take you out of the car in case you hurt your neck, but I’m going to ask you questions, okay? You can feel everything okay?”

"You're still bleeding, baby,” Trowa interrupted, low-voiced. “God, I'm sorry. I should've moved faster."

"You were fine. I never saw it coming." He tapped the teenager’s knees, one after the other. “Nassir, you feel that? Move your arms for me.”

Sirens came into audio range. And there were people now, standing outside their cars, watching.

“That’s good,” Duo said belatedly. “Tro, go meet the police, okay.”

“Yeah.” Right in front of the kid, Trowa leaned over to touch Duo’s face. But then he was up and moving. Duo watched him stalking off, wired and with no-where to go with that jittery rush of adrenaline. The blue-and-red flashers were coming from both directions.

“I can’t believe I hit you,” Nassir said again. He was starting to shake now. Duo caught the sweater before it fell away from his head. “Shit, he’s gonna be so angry with me, I wasn’t supposed to have the car. Are you gonna call my dad?”

Duo closed his eyes against a wash of nausea. “Yeah,” he croaked out. “Someone’s gonna call your dad. He’ll be glad you’re okay.”

“No, you don’t know my dad. He’ll be so pissed—“

“Then you shouldn’t have stolen the fucking car. Stay still.”

Footsteps behind him. Time seemed to be going light-speed, but it still took for god-damn ever for the cops to come. No, it was the emergency crew, two young guys in uniform, a lady who came up the driver’s side and started asking the same questions Duo had. One of the others helped Duo back out of the car.

The kid went away in the ambulance. When the cops finally came, they dithered a lot about moving the cars out of the intersection. A rookie got sent to redirect traffic around it. Duo spent all that time sitting on a kerb getting his face sewn back together, four stitches for the forehead, right under his hairline, and a painful, careful check for fractures in his cheekbone. They let him have aspirin for the headache. Trowa wouldn’t take anything, just hovered over Duo and glared at all the emergency crew.

“You’re good to go,” the lady finally told him, finishing the plaster on his forehead. “You want one of the cops to drive you home?”

“No,” Trowa answered, still abrupt. He had his hands shoved deep in his pockets, his shoulders hunched. “The car’ll drive.”

“You should get it towed to a place.”

“It’s fine,” Duo assured her. “Thanks.” Trowa jumped to help him up as soon as he shifted an inch. “We need to sign anything?”

“We got all your information. You’re free to go, assuming the police don’t need anything else.”

“Fine on our end.” That was the older of the pair who’d come in the squad car, with the younger partner still in the middle of the road waving people around the wreck. “We’ll check on you tomorrow. Make sure you contact the kid’s parents. Insurance information and all.”

“Thanks.” Trowa was all but clinging to him, and trying not to, in front of people Duo might have to work with one day. He let go long enough to get in the car and test the engine. It started fine, rolled a few feet fine. They worked together to clear Duo’s seat of the bits of glass. Trowa almost tried to lift him onto the seat, so Duo slipped in fast, and pulled the door shut. It didn’t quite fit closed, with the frame bent out of joint on his side. The map light was still on, and the headlights. Trowa came down on the gas just a little too hard, and the car rocked as they pulled out.

“You okay to drive?” Duo asked.

"I'm good, Duo."

"You sure?"

Trowa scowled, but didn’t look away from the road, and his hands were white-knuckled fists on the wheel. "Yeah, I'm sure. I just want to get you home to bed."

“If I had a nickel for every time I heard that." Duo pulled it together for a weak grin. The clock said half eleven. It had only been an hour since they’d left the restaurant. "I'm okay, sweetheart."

"You scared the shit out of me. All that blood."

"You know what head wounds look like."

"Yeah, I know. Still scared me."

They hit a red light. Trowa was so cautious slowing down they didn’t even trip the sensors. He reached out and put his arm around Duo’s shoulders.

It didn’t feel a damn thing like battle ever had. That was the weirdest part, Duo thought, was surprised to be thinking. Time was he couldn’t have sat through something like that without flashing—

“Dinner with ex-lawyers,” Trowa was saying. “Bad karma. Write that down.”

“Consider it written.” The light went to green, finally. Trowa had to let him go to work the shift. Duo said, "You need to see a doctor."

"I'm not hurt, dumbass." Trowa squeezed his knee good-naturedly.

“You didn't know when we were."

Trowa glanced at him, finally. "You got hit on the head, baby, not me."

"Right after the hit. You didn't know when we were. That's twice."

"Are you sure? I don't remember—“ Trowa’s face went wooden. He didn’t finish the sentence.

"You said-- you said something like god-damn Ozzies."

"That's nuts. Why would I say that?"

He was lying. Duo dug a knuckle into the pressure point on his temple. "Don't fight me on everything. You're going off to who the fuck knows where in two days and you've been having fucking flashbacks. You need to see a doctor, Jesus, Tro."

Flashbacks, hell. Trowa looked remarkably like he had back in the war, for that matter, not a thing on the face that you could read and nothing being said to fill you in, either. They stared out at the dark outside, apartment lights on either side, dark blotches from trees every fifteen feet. Every dip and climb of the hills made Duo’s head pound.

"Not tonight,” Trowa said finally. “I don’t want to deal with this tonight. You're beat up and I'm, apparently… losing my shit."

“The last job,” Duo tried.

“I said not tonight.” They reached their street. “We'll talk about my problem tomorrow."

"Yeah,” Duo said. “Fine." Then, "No, shit. I have to work tomorrow."

“Like fuck you’re working tomorrow.”

“I’ve been using the damn sick days to look at houses.” The headache wasn’t easing. Maybe he could sleep it off. “It’s cool. I’m not exactly incapacitated here.”

“Baby,” Trowa said, quietly. "Don't freak on me about this."

 

**

 

“So you flew out early to surprise me?” Quatre asked.

“I hope it’s not inconvenient.” They shared kisses on both cheeks, and Relena twitched the collar of his shirt straight in back before they separated. “I saw the vote on the news at the port. I bet you’re glad that passed.”

“I don’t know if I’d call a two-vote margin a pass, but I’m glad it’s over.” He checked his watch. “You know what? You’re here in time for a late dinner. Oh, unless you’ve already—“

“That sounds good. I’ll just need to change.”

“I think you look fine. You always look fine.” But he was already glancing about for her luggage. “Did you bring a bag?”

“I had them put it in your apartment, I hope you don’t mind.”

“Not a bit. Very foresighted.” He picked up his tie. “I’ll have Sato call Essence for us. It should be quiet.” He put himself together, tie and buttons and a quick tug here and there, and then he patted his pockets, first at his breast and then his waist. Relena felt a sudden twinge of memory. Her adopted father had always done that same thing, forever losing his wallet in his suit coats.

“Oh,” Quatre said, then. He had found something in his pocket. His mouth pursed a little, as it did when he was making some internal decision. Relena waited, as the moment stretched out tentatively. “Well,” Quatre said. “I suppose now is as good as any other time. We’re at least in private for once.” His hand emerged, holding a jewellery box.

Oh, God. Relena crossed her arms quickly. "Just what are you doing, Mr Winner?"

"We've been discussing-- tossing around the idea." His face went soft, looking down at her, uncertain suddenly. The box turned over and over in his fingers. "We've never made an issue of religion-- I'm sorry, I hope I'm doing this right."

"What are you doing, Quatre?" she asked again. She took the step between them, close enough to see his adam’s apple bob when he swallowed. Then—he made to kneel, but caught himself, stood there awkwardly. Relena discovered she was barely breathing. She had imagined this moment dozens of times—hundreds, probably, between her childish love of Heero and her realisation that Quatre meant to ask her, one day.

Quatre shuffled from the right foot to the left; she would always remember that. Then he just opened the box, and turned it to face her.

It came bursting out of her mouth. "I love you, Quatre," she said. She closed the box without even looking at the ring, and threw her arms about his neck. He exhaled, a warm puff of air against her hair, and squeezed her tightly.

“I hope this is a ‘yes’,” he whispered.

Relena nodded several times. “Put it on me.”

His arm left her waist, and the box passed between them again. He took her left hand. His trembled. Hers was steady as steel. It was a pink teardrop diamond mounted on white gold. The slim band fit her perfectly, bobbing over her knuckle and settling, not too tight nor too loose. Then he stooped to kiss her, and seemed quite pleased with her enthusiastic response.

"Well." There was a little flush of colour in his cheeks. "I know we haven't really had time to talk about a date, yet, but a long engagement--"

"Did you have a date in mind?"

"Ehm, not yet, no. Did you?"

"It's an election year," she conceded.

"I thought I'd be pretty busy defending my office, since no-one actually elected me the last time."  
He smiled lopsidedly. “Think I stand a chance?”

“Tanner managed to get elected three times. It ought to be a breeze.” She did risk a look at the ring, now. It wasn’t much to her taste—she had long outgrown pink—but it was obviously an antique, perhaps even a family heirloom. He was wise to have chosen that as the engagement ring. They might go together to pick one for the wedding-- "Maybe,” she said, “a short engagement, and we can campaign together."

"Do you really think we can afford a short engagement? I don't have poll numbers or anything, but I wouldn't want to rush it."

That was unexpected. And not entirely, or at all, welcome. She summoned a smile. "If you think it would hurt your chances, of course we can wait."

"I don't know. Maybe we ought to talk to my manager first." She had time to do no more than attempt to hide her frown before he cut her off. "That took three seconds to realise I'm an ass. Please, please ignore that."

That was worth a deep breath. "Do you want this marriage?"

"Of course I want this marriage."

"Then the pollsters should only have so much influence."

"You're right. Of course. That was inappropriate."

She leaned on his chest, and let him wrap her in his arms again. "We don't have to rush a date, darling. We have… the rest of our lives." She let the tips of her fingers brush his neck. "I can be patient,” she added. “To a point." She blazed a trail down his shirt to his collarbone, and fitted her palm over his sternum. "But I won't promise to behave."

He laughed at that. "I'd hate for the patience to become a habit in our lives.” His hand brushed just the edge of her hair. He was always careful of her hair, so considerate of mussing her. And he always took his cues from her, and waited on her permission for their physical intimacy. He kissed her again, and his mouth lingered, leaving warmth on the tip of her nose, her chin, her lips. When Relena tilted her head back, he took her neck, too. The pressure of his hands against the small of her back held her still, crushed her slowly closer.

“Quatre,” she whispered. Her hand clenched to a fist on his shoulder. The warm metal of his ring dug into her finger. "Quatre, let's not wait."

Even his breathing ceased for a moment. They were close enough for her to feel the crazy beat of his heart—or maybe that was her own. “No,” he said, and cleared his throat. "No-- we said we would."

"We make the rules, Quatre." She slipped two fingers between the buttons of his shirt. He exhaled, hard.

It was what they needed. They would be married, and that would satisfy any propriety he could name. She wanted that claim on him, and she wanted him to have that claim on her. Romance had not been the highest priority in their relationship. It might never be. They were both focussed people who had lived their entire lives in the public eye. Who knew how long they’d have to wait for a wedding, and it would inevitably be a formal affair, and a political affair, and they would both be so keen on performing for the audience that there’d be no time or energy to concentrate on each other. But this time, this time could be theirs, and Relena needed that.

She almost thought she’d lost him. But then suddenly he moved. He took her hand, her left hand, and to her shock he removed the ring. She sputtered a weak protest, which died as he clasped her right hand, and gently slipped the ring onto her finger. She stared at him in confusion, until the meaning of it dawned. He’d moved it from the engagement hand to the wedded hand.

“My wife,” he said tenderly. “My extremely persuasive wife.”


	4. Three

"You're kind of crazy, but I can take a little crazy. I mean, you met Ruth. Duo's a great guy, and I don't want to make trouble for you two, but listen, if things don't go well..."

"You've got to be fucking kidding."

“Yes,” Addison said, deadpan.

The only thing scarier than Addison joking was Addison not joking. Trowa laughed involuntarily. "Hey, it was a shot."

Addison grinned at him. “Lucky Duo. Still stalking him?"

"What do you think?"

"I'll take that as a yes. Buy you a drink?"

"A drink.” Trowa checked his watch. He had an hour or so before Duo was home, but he’d planned on spending that time shopping for a replacement Desert Eagle. The slide on his old one was loose. But Addison was a scotch kind of lawyer, and a twenty-year old single malt would be good insulation against a conscience. He expected Duo not to pick a fight, not on the night before a job, but sex would be good, and he was more likely to get it if he didn’t come in smelling like hick and black powder solvent. “Sure," he said.

He was wrong about the scotch. Addison stood leaning on the bar like an Armani ad, magnificent suit draping just so over the hips, the snap-down collar artfully open at the throat. Trowa propped his sneaker on the brass foot rail and waited for the bartender to finish showing off. She laid two fat glasses on their sides on the bar and dripped bourbon in a red-tinted puddle. A roll of each glass caught the light like topaz.

"So will you work for the firm?" Addison asked him.

“I'm considering it." Not really. Maybe a little. Only in that it would keep him at home. He didn’t have that pull to disappear into the ether anymore. He knew the job was always going to come between them. It already always had, even if Duo hadn’t known it. So he’d quit, because Duo wanted it. Maybe they’d travel. Fuck in exotic locales. That was what people did when they wore themselves out on _meaning_ and _purpose_ before they hit thirty, wasn’t it?

Probably he was getting old.

Addison saluted him with the bourbon. "You should. Consider it. You'd be completely independent, languishing on the payroll until we need you. We rarely have more than fifteen cases. Half of those ever go to trial. Most of the investigating work you'd do would be preparatory, finding dirt, the mistress, the sex tape, that kind of thing. Child's play to a secret agent."

Trowa sipped. It burned a little on his lips. "So what's the catch?"

"It lacks the prestige of the Preventers. And the challenge."

"As far as most of the world knows, I'm an upscale mercenary. I'm not looking for prestige.” Too much vanilla in the afterwash. Trowa let the glass rest on the bar. The fat guy on his right lit a cigar. “How's the money?" he asked.

"You'd start at a hundred. Commission on each case, plus a yearly bonus. With expenses, you're looking at double the salary figure."

The cigar smelled better than the bourbon.

"I wanted you to hear the numbers before you bought a house. You'd be able to afford considerably better than what Duo was describing."

"It's what he wants. What he can afford. You follow?" Duo was nobody’s rent-boy.

"I do, yes." Addison propped his chin on his fist. "Duo's a good guy, you know? I think maybe the first really good guy I've known since college."

"He's also off-limits." Trowa bared his teeth in a smile. "Unless you want to end up an entry in my log."

Addison held up both hands, pretending fear. “You do creepy-scary a little too well, my friend.”

"Relax. I trust you, Addison."

"Oh, I'm sure."

"I'll think about it." His voice came out flatter than he meant, but the decision had been that fast, just clicking somewhere in the back of his mind. It was an attractive offer. Aside from the fact that Addison was disturbingly earnest— he’d almost liked him better when he’d thought he was just a smarmy bastard. He’d rather Kiplis. Maybe he could ask for her. She reminded him of Une. Without the ability to ruin his life. Well, not quite as much or as readily as Une, anyway.

"Take whatever time you need,” Addison said. “Meanwhile, allow me to wine and dine you for a little. That is also a perk of the job. And by you, of course,” he added hastily, “I mean the both of you."

Trowa shot the last of his drink, daring any of the fancy-dress morons there to so much as eyeball him. The glass vibrated against his fist as he slapped it down. "I gotta tell you, Marc, I like you just fine, but I'm not sure the wining and dining part appeals. I'm not that social, and Duo's kind of a homebody. Nice booze, though."

Addison was unimpressed. That was the problem with people who saw you at your worst. They never forgot about it, and they constantly felt superior because of it. "Oh, come off it,” he retorted. “I'm guessing people like you don't have many friends, but people like Duo do. Except maybe not so much since the murder trial of the century? He called me, remember.”

Unfortunately excellent point.

Addison was far less dramatic finishing his glass and setting it down, but the little clink as it touched the bar was as final as a gunshot. “Let him have some friends."

"What do you want from him?" Trowa said. “No bullshit, _Marc_.”

"I don't want to sleep with him, if that's what you mean." Addison’s mouth went up in a little smile. He turned his back to the bar and gazed out at the patrons. "I meant what I said. He's a good guy. I spend about as much time with scumbags and worms as you do, but it's my job to defend them, to think like them, to excuse them for their lies and their greed. There's something kind of liberating about being around someone who's exactly the opposite of all that."

Duo had a longing for sophistication and civilisation, and nightlife and book clubs and cotillions. Addison had all that and said it didn’t mean anything without whatever he thought Duo was— truth, maybe. Human decency.

"So what,” Trowa said. “You think if you hang out with him, you might feel a little clean again?"

Addison looked back at him. "Don't you?"

"Yeah.” And for a second, he felt more than a little predatory about it.

Addison nodded. “Yeah.”

Trowa wet his thumb to pick at peanut flakes on the bar. No matter how ritzy the joint, they always had peanuts. Universal reality.

"Not a steakhouse next time,” he said. “Duo's a vegetarian."

"He's-- Jesus." Addison laughed. "Yeah. Okay."

"You really do need an investigator."

"Apparently. Ruth'll flip her shit. She's the one who suggested Morton’s."

He managed a fairly natural expression. "Let her think she got it right."

"So you're headed out again, huh? Off to save the world."

"Yeah. My flight’s tonight, actually."

"Just enough time to get the cape dry-cleaned."

"If you think I'm a hero type, you're not reading the signs right."

"I think you probably have your moments."

"You just go on thinking that, Markie." Trowa reached for his wallet, then changed his mind. Addison could pay, even if he only wanted Trowa’s help as a favour for Duo. “Time to be going. I'll call you."

 

 

 

Duo cried when Trowa woke up him after midnight to say good-bye. It embarrassed them both, for probably the same reasons. Duo wiped his nose and breathed through his mouth, but it was too late to hide it.

It also made him nervous. Duo wasn’t usually so emotional. They hadn’t even been drunk when they’d gone to bed. Well, not much.

“Shit,” Duo said. “Don’t look at me. You’ll be late for your flight.”

"Baby, don't." Trowa hovered at the edge of their bed, not sure if he should sit. “It's just a couple weeks."

It took Duo almost a full minute to get gruff enough to speak again. "I'll drive you to the airport?"

"You should stay here,” Trowa said. “It's cold out. I like thinking of you in bed."

Duo exhaled something not quite a laugh. He reached up, and his palm slid, fingers cool, along Trowa’s neck.

Trowa turned his head to kiss Duo’s wrist. "Is it important to you?" he asked, a concession he wouldn’t have made a year ago, a question he rarely asked himself about Duo’s whims. And that was a strange thing to suddenly do, because he realised he already knew the answer, for once.

Duo shook his head. "Be careful."

"Always." He stood. His duffle was on the floor by the bureau, right where Duo had left it when he’d packed for Trowa. The strap settled over his shoulder and held sturdily. "You worry too much."

"Just tell me I'm being stupid and get on the road."

"You're being stupid, baby.” He bent down. Duo’s mouth was warm, at least, when he pressed it briefly with his own lips. "I'll be back soon."

Duo nodded again. "See you then."

"Yeah." He kissed Duo a final time, quickly. Duo rolled to his stomach and pushed Trowa’s pillow out of his way. Trowa hesitated, an activity that didn’t bode well for the near future. He drew a deep breath of his own. It was just as well they weren’t usually this asinine. He had enough to not think about on the job, these days.

He didn’t look back as he walked out. But he couldn’t stop himself from being extra gentle closing the bedroom door.

 

**

 

Everything lacked a sense of urgency now.

“Heero?” Noin reclaimed his eyes. “You say you fired at the first man because you saw he was armed. Did you see he was armed, or did you just assume from the situation?”

Spiralling slowly. Like a jumper with a chute. Floating, literally, with the breeze. Lacking all sense of gravity. He knew the landing was out there, but it was hard to pay attention.

“Heero—“

“I assumed.” Heero dropped his pencil to his desk. “Based on several observed factors, including the shape of the holster at his left hip, the obvious bullet wounds in the victims, the shatter-point of the window, and the way he reached for his hip without hesitation. If he hadn’t been armed, his movements would have been far less directed and assured.”

“But you didn’t see the gun.” She made a note.

Hard to care.

“Heero.”

“No.”

She closed her portfolio. “It’s getting late. Let’s finish another day.”

“How much longer will you be here?”

Her sigh made the dark fall of hair by her lips puff outward briefly. It swung gently, inky and dark, with the movement of her head. Heero watched it, already forgetting to be interested in her answer.

“There’s still Stenson and Wrede to get to. Then we’re moving to Narcotics. Cuartero and Alvarez, Ricky Pearce, Lei Fang and Jennifer Ming.”

Part of the job, wasn’t it? The brass made a habit of hanging their own traitors. The merest hint of suspicion had put dozens of agents under— since Une had been given the purview, once the unchecked corruption of the early years had been exposed. Heero had never cared much. He didn’t expect to be appreciated for doing his job. Noin did her job. It was unpleasant and it made her disliked, but Heero understood that. It wasn’t a bad thing, if you couldn’t have other things, to have purpose, to have a cause. Noin believed in her own righteousness. It was obviously enough to drive her on when the temperature in HQ dropped every time she arrived.

She picked up the empty nameplate from the desk facing Heero’s. She said, "I thought you'd have a partner by now."

“So far I've managed to elude one."

"How's Duo? They finally stopped talking about him in the news."

"He hates his new job.” He shrugged.

"What's he doing now?"

"He's a cop. Cold Case Unit. It's a waste."

"The police do good work." Then she smiled. "You're right. It's a waste. Other than that, how is he?"

He didn’t know. He’d thought of calling. But he knew the reason for the extended silence. Duo was wise about people, Duo was wise in particular to Trowa, and it would in all probability be years before Trowa materially trusted Duo again, trusted Duo to stay put in the locked box Trowa wanted to keep him in. Heero couldn’t be a friend and a problem at the same time.

He’d suffered it, the estrangement, at first. Thought of Duo every moment he couldn’t physically occupy himself. Had worried. Until the anxiety settled to a functional level, until he could question himself with some vestige of objectivity just what he was doing. He’d known Duo for half his life, the good half of his life, and believed sincerely that Duo was certainly a part of why he considered it good. Was it love? It hurt enough to be love. It had hurt, the act of losing him, taking place as it had right at the act of finally getting him. But when he thought of Duo, the things he thought of changed the further he got from Duo himself, where the details blurred. Where he didn’t know if he loved Duo or if he was just— addicted to Duo’s electricity. When he was younger it had been Relena. He was so used to ignoring his own— needs, that the fulfilment was a shock, painful but—

But.

He woke up dreaming. He never dreamed. He didn’t know what it meant.

"Well,” Noin said. “If you don't want a partner, maybe you'll consider coming over to Troop 90X."

"Internal Affairs?” Heero flipped his tie to lie straight. “You're kidding."

"No."

"Hell no."

"You may feel that we did you wrong these past months, but you have to admit that the need for oversight is pretty desperate. Imagine if you'd had someone you could trust to go to from the beginning."

“When particularly do you mean?” He didn’t wait for her answer. “I don’t dispute there can be issues or abuses. I dispute that you’re the one attacking our intentions when outsiders were doing it just fine.”

She stood, pulling her portfolio with her. "If you think I have even an iota of regret about it, you're dead wrong, Heero. People cross the line all the time. It's not enough to care about people's politics. We have to care about their moral compass, or Preventers don't serve anyone."

"It’s not for me,” he said flatly.

Her expression said she thought he was being unfair. He knew. But she’d got up on her high horse and it was setting him off, stirring the disgruntled temper that had been rumbling sub-audio in him all week. Month. He was personalising it, and he didn’t care, because he wanted Duo back, damn it, and it wasn’t going to happen.

Her face was frozen. "I’ll let you know when I’ll have time for you again. Be prepared to discuss the cases where Wufei was senior partner." She looked away, her jaw tight. "You still live with your foot in your mouth. And you still don't know it."

He tried all afternoon to shake off the discussion with Noin. He felt like everyone was watching him out of the corner of their eyes, glancing quickly away whenever he turned toward them. Everyone knew IAB had come down on Wufei, and were still going through his cases even though he’d quit three months ago. It had led to a general house cleaning, they were calling it, and they were looking at anyone who’d had any kind of complaint ever. Heero knew they were blaming him, him and Wufei and mostly Duo, though so far no-one had said it to his face.

So he had no idea whether to be relieved or frustrated when Duo left him a text message asking for a shopping date.

It had only been five years since they’d done one. Maybe longer than that—they’d had different schedules after Duo moved to Narcotics, and old habits had just faded. Frustrated, definitely.

Relieved. Definitely. But it just took a minute of sorting, a minute not to be hurt about how long he’d had to wait or angry about the way it ignored something they would, someday, really genuinely have to talk about— it took a minute not to feel a little desperate surge of entirely inappropriate hope.

They met at their old Natural Foods, the converted warehouse by the highway staffed by hippies in hemp and tie-dye. Heero got there first, in time enough to stop at the café in the front and buy drinks for them both, just like he always had. He met Duo with a pomegranate-acai smoothie in hand.

"Hi, babe," Duo greeted him, and hugged him one-armed. “Is that for me? Ohhh. Fancy.”

“It was the geekiest thing on the menu,” Heero said.

“Har har." Duo sucked noisily through the straw. "God. It's been such a long damn day."

He’d walked right into that. It hadn’t had to be normal, there was no decree from on high. He’d left it to Duo to choose. Why be surprised by the choice? He didn’t _think_ Duo knew what he was doing.

He took the basket Duo handed him. “What happened?"

"I completely forgot my coat in the car at the car park, and I left my wallet on the trolley to my building and had to go back for it, so of course Marquez, who thinks he's deputy captain or something, he's all over my ass about being late, and I'm not ready to just piss off at him yet because I'm still kind of new, and--" Not a word about the mottled bruise on his cheek, which would likely have been more pertinent, or at least interesting. Heero tuned it out. They went past the potato stand to the squash.

"And then,” Duo went on, “Trowa’s out of town again, so I slept like crap. I think I actually miss the snoring."

"You should come back to Preventers," Heero said.

Duo went nose-down in his smoothie, and didn’t answer.

“I know. I just thought it was worth saying.” No, that was a lie.

Duo dropped a yellow gourd into Heero’s basket. "They hung me out to dry, Heero. I'm not going to go back there."

"Sorry.”

"Don't take a partner if you don't want to."

"I haven't."

Grapefruit next. More into Heero’s basket than Duo’s, some obscure kind of apology. "You doing okay?" Duo asked then.

Heero shrugged. He didn’t like the flavour of his iced coffee.

"Oh, you don't get to do that with me, buddy."

He intercepted the tangelo routed toward his basket. "Yeah. I'm good. It's been the same, only quieter."

"Yeah. I bet."

"A lot of the guys—“ Duo looked at him, waiting. Heero licked his lips. “Well, you left a hole."

Duo exhaled hard. He put down the fruit, and took Heero’s hand.

With sheer effort of will, Heero didn’t close his fingers around Duo’s. He said, "Probably shouldn't do that."

Hard to read Duo’s face. Hard expression, really, the preface to something Heero knew he wouldn’t like and Duo was going to say anyway. But Duo let go. Heero spasmed his hand closed and put it in his pocket.

"So we're never going to touch each other ever again?” Duo asked bluntly. “We're going to be those people?"

"What people?"

"People who can't be friends."

Maybe. In all honesty. Duo was pretty much the start and end of Heero’s human contact these days. And he’d just spent three months incommunicado because he was trying to make it work with a boyfriend Heero didn’t want him to have.

"Sorry." He wet his lips with the coffee. "I was never good at these things."

"Yeah, but you're not a robot, so upgrade, son." Duo smiled at him. “Come on. I want to see if they have any dairy specials.”

Heero didn’t recognise any of the staff. No, that was the same guy at the deli, tattoos all up his bare fleshy arms. And he nodded at Duo, which suggested Duo still came here for his groceries. For five years. Five years and three months, three months since he’d come a few molecules to fucking Heero on the kitchen linoleum.

"Wufei said I always counted on you too much.” Duo looked up from the cheeses. “Not that you couldn't deal with it,” Heero said, “but that I couldn't."

"I think we've established that Wufei doesn't know fuck-all."

"No, he was right about this."

"No he wasn't. You don't count on me except as friends do, which is absolutely fine, and I'm absolutely fine with it."

"I did. That's how I made my mistake with you."

That was worth a few minutes of silence. Duo took his time choosing mozzarella, and then stayed eyes-down dragging out a selection of hummus. Then, he threw his head back with an explosive sigh. "I never said it then, though I should have. I'm sorry I let it get that far."

Maybe not every one of their conversations should be so life-or-death. Heero didn’t know why it always seemed to happen like that. Maybe one day they’d run out of significant things to say to each other. Maybe it would be this day. What was there to say after this, except that neither of them ever made the same mistake twice?

Except about where to have a private conversation. Which was no more the supermarket than it had been the kitchen sink in Trowa’s apartment. "You're just like Chang.” He binned the coffee, and took Duo’s basket from him instead. "Do you have any idea how frustrating it is to try to apologise and have it thrown back in your face?"

Duo’s eyebrows went up under his fringe. "I accept," he answered evenly. "Now let me apologise for flirting with you for a decade because you were my back-up guy."

"Yeah.” A woman went by pushing a crate of potatoes. Heero watched her pass. “That did kind of confuse the issue."

 

**

 

“I wouldn’t have to come down on you if you didn’t disappear for four days in the middle of the case!” Marquez retorted.

“In the beginning of the case,” Duo corrected coolly. He rolled the football under his foot, then punted it toward Jorge. “And I didn’t disappear. I used my sick days.”

“All at once?”

“It’s funny how that works out sometimes.” The other men had noticed their tension, and play was slowing as they stopped to watch. Duo scowled, and then tried to clear his expression. Even if the squad seemed determined not to like him, and Marquez was the worst of that, he was only going to confirm their suspicions if he acted suspicious.

So he forced a smile. “Rosa ducked out early. We have a spot on the B team. You bring your trainers?”

As a distraction, it worked—for a second. Disconcertion became a belligerent frown. “Play your little game with the janitors,” Marquez said flatly. “Don’t be late inside.”

“Jesus,” Ignacio muttered. He knocked Duo in the shoulder as they watched Marquez stalk off stiffly for the doors. “What crawled up his ass and died?”

“I don’t know,” Duo answered. “But I’m not crawling in after it.” He signaled for the football. “Are we playing or what?”

“Nah, Flaco, he’s right. We’re gonna be late if we don’t shower now. Man, everything okay in there?”

“It’s cool. Just the new-guy shit, you know.”

“You been here long enough to be the old guy.”

“They don’t know me like you do,” Duo shot back facetiously. Rosa kicked him the football, and Duo nudged it toward his duffle by their trash-can goal post. “I said it’s all cool.”

Ignacio was unconvinced. Duo kept his face turned away, like Trowa always did, making like he was busy with his duffle. He stripped his jersey and mopped himself off with his gym towel.

“Work on that switch-up,” Ignacio said finally. “I won’t always be around to cover your skinny ass.” His chubby face split into a wide grin. “See ya manana.”

He showered and changed into his suit before heading for the break room. He’d worn a uniform while he was in Homicide, but once he’d moved to Narcotics everything had been plainclothes and undercover, anyway. There’d been a period where Duo had barely owned anything without gang symbols. And Trowa might not care about his own clothes, but new things turned up in Duo’s closet that he knew he hadn’t put there. He probably wasn’t going to get much use out of the bondage-themed leather necktie, but he liked the effort.

He was always low, when Trowa left on a thing. He didn’t like thinking about it at work—work was work and home was home, and that division had kept him sane, or saner than Wufei, apparently. But he missed Trowa already, had a little ache going in his pit. If Trowa was late getting back Duo was going to start tossing his stuff in the trash, that was what. See how Trowa liked it when he couldn’t find his running shoes or his remote control.

Not that Duo would do that. Not now, when things were actually going well, for once. It felt almost like it had when they’d first got together. Doing things together, feeling the same things together. Maybe it was stupid to live with the fear constantly hanging over him that Trowa would wake up one day completely reverted. Shying away from the slightest sign of—maybe it was stupid but it was what he felt. Evolve, damn it, he’d used to say. Shout, as if volume would drive the message home. Grow up.

Going off into the wild blue yonder having fucking hallucinations. He was going to be a wreck until Trowa got back. A moron of a wreck.

Shazza and Nadia were the only two in the break room when he emerged. Shazza greeted him with some actual enthusiasm. She seemed to have decided he wasn’t as bad as advertised. Nadia was cooler, though she did go out of her way to mention there was a fresh kettle for tea.

“How’s the face?” Shazza asked. “That bruise looks better.”

“Not even tender.” He filled a mug and chose a tea bag. “Hey, I wanted to ask you how the interviews went.”

“Rico didn’t brief you?”

“What, you mean actually speak civilly to Duo?” Shazza answered scornfully.

Nadia frowned, at which of them Duo didn’t know. “Most of the interviews were bust,” she told him. “We couldn’t find half the original suspects, or the club owner. Or the club, for that matter.”

“New name, new style, new management,” Shazza clarified. “There was a pretty thorough renovation, and back alleys are a forensics nightmare even when it hasn’t been ten years.”

“What about the free clinic?”

“The doctor who examined the vic moved to L1 four years ago. The nurses don’t remember the kid.”

That had been a good lead. He was disappointed. “Maybe they’d remember me.”

“I think we should try at least.” Nadia pulled a small paper pad from her coat pocket and flipped it to her case notes. “And we should try the club again, now that you’re back. You really should have been here from the first.”

“And he would have been, if Marquez didn’t have his head so far up his ass.” Shazza ignored Nadia’s scowl. “Come off it. He’s just being a territorial jerk. You should have been assigned the club at least,” she added to Duo. “Since you were the one who found the vic there before. Now we’ll just have to do everything over again. And he’ll find some way to make it look like anyone’s fault but his. You should watch your back.”

“Rico wouldn’t lie.” Nadia stood. “There’s no point getting stroppy. Let’s just get our coats and get started, all right? Let’s the three of us at least try, so we can cover all the bases.”

“Sure.” Duo found a plastic lid for his tea and capped it. “Let me check my voice mail. I’ll be right there.”

 

**

 

His hotel was on Ladova Street, a run-down little rent-house populated entirely by students. They were drunk and loud the night Trowa arrived, but Trowa generally found that made things easier. He was barely noticed, and once he stuffed a towel under the edge of the door, the noise didn’t bother him.

For the next three days he lived like the tourist he’d told Customs he was. He ate kosher goulash in the Jewish quarter, parek v rohliku in the pubs where the booths were painted in rich lacquers and the wan sunlight barely penetrated the thick glass windows. He took plenty of opportunity to say the one Czech phrase he’d memorised on the plane-- _pivo prosim_ — beer, please. He rented a Harley just for the hell of it and spent hours on the roads, lost in the hustle of intense European traffic, dodging the aggressive trams and the oblivious crowds who crammed the yellow grid junctions. They had intense faces, the people of Prague, angular bodies. Even when they smiled and laughed there was still something hardened about them. He liked it.

Early morning of the fourth day, he walked to the Church of Saints Cyril and Methodius on Resslova Street. There were already sight-seers there, standing on the pavement to take snapshots of the tall cream-coloured walls and red terra cotta rooves. They charged him thirty-five Czech koruna for entance to the crypt museum. He had a camera, to fit in, and because Duo sometimes liked pictures of the places Trowa travelled to, but he left the brochure on the first bench he passed. There were multi-lingual plaques on the wall, relief portraits carved of people who had died in foolish causes ages before Trowa had been born. He knew the history of the church and the assassination of the Nazi Reinhard Heydrich— he’d been bored on a long flight with nothing to read but a city guide— how the assassins had fled to the church to make their last stand and died to a man. The death hadn’t stopped there; the Nazis had executed anyone even remotely connected to the church, the bishop, the wife of the dean, even three choiristers. All for a few men who thought patriotism was the same thing as recklessness.

It wasn’t too different from Duo’s church, really. There were memorials there, too. He didn’t think Duo had ever been to see them. Trowa had, the year they were broken up. He’d needed to be in the place where Duo was— forged. Hadn’t walked away knowing anything he hadn’t already, before. Which had maybe been important. He wished he’d figured it out then, when it might have meant something to Duo to hear about it. That quote from somewhere-- "All for a few men who bled patriotism." Or, if you really wanted to be cynical, shat it out like it really didn’t have meaning—

"Stop frowning,” the man behind him said. “Tourists don't frown."

Trowa didn’t turn. The man behind him shifted to Trowa’s side, close enough for them to talk but not close enough that the casual observer would remember them doing it. "They do when they drink the water," Trowa muttered.

Balding man, round spectacles, a cigarette poking out from the muddy blond moustache. No-one would remember him at all— he was completely invisible without even trying. Trowa admired it distantly.

The man dropped his cigarette to the stone floor and smooshed it with a boot heel. He told Trowa, "I prefer a clean division of labour. You shoot, I extract."

"That's fine." Trowa slipped his hands into his pockets, only then realising he was cold. "When and where?"

"Two days. Praha hlavní nádraží, the service from Olomouc."

Trowa tilted his head back as a cloud passed over the little crypt window, leeching the already dim light. When he looked again, the man was gone.

No-one liked a squishy good-bye, anyway.


	5. Four

Looking back he’d remember what set him off, but at the time he was just in the moment, just living it like reality slipped with no signposts to note the fork in the road. He’d been watching the news, too dull from a trio of beers over dinner to care it wasn’t in a language he spoke. Flipping between that and the weather, and it caught his eye, a short clip that was Quatre and Relena ‘Pretty In Pink’ Peacecraft walking somewhere with those fake-looking colony trees, the kind that never got any bigger than Duo in thick-heeled boots. He didn’t understand a single word aside from the names, but they started showing some kind of montage, so it was probably more important than the regular political blow-by. It was all the video memory that did it; one minute he was watching it on the screen, and the next he was in it like no time at all had passed.

Arm around Quatre’s shoulders. They were having their picture taken, there were cameras everywhere, a huge crowd— well, a big crowd— reporters everywhere. Duo was off to one side not enjoying himself at all, but that was probably because Heero wasn’t there. They’d had some kind of fight, a big one, but Duo wouldn’t spill and Trowa had lost interest long before the others. Wufei was on Quatre’s other side, scowling at everything with excessive dignity. Why bone up about it? They were getting awards. It was about time they got to be heroes instead of villains. Not that Trowa was fussed about the medals, but there was talk about making pensions for them, and Trowa was keen for money from any source. He didn’t want to stay at the circus forever, and Quatre’s annoying sisters couldn’t call him a gold-digger if he had plenty in his own treasure chest. He had his arm around Quatre’s shoulders, giving the crowd down below the stage the companionable picture they all wanted, but that wasn’t why he’d done it— he’d done it for that flush, that nervous goose-flesh Quat got when Trowa bent down to whisper against his neck, his lips so close he could have licked if he wanted— and he did want. And Quat wanted it, Trowa didn’t have a doubt in his mind, even if Quat was playing some weird game of no-no-no and Trowa couldn’t figure out the rules for how to get to yes-please-now. Arm around Quatre’s shoulders—

And then he was back in the hotel room, and there was a game show on the television, and it was a long time of staring at all of it before he even realised he was holding the phone in his left hand.

Well, Quat was straight, in the end. He’d loved Trowa, so he’d tried, but for better or worse Trowa had been young and stupid and probably pretty damaged. Better for them both that it had at least ended fast.

They mostly forgave each other. When they were younger Duo had used to say that. They mostly forgave. Didn’t mostly forget. Kept reliving the same issues. They didn’t know how to deal with themselves, which was maybe human and was maybe particular to them, in which case what they probably needed was professional help. No amount of money in the world that could convince a shrink to take that on. Duo alone had spent thousands, and look at him.

He was holding the phone. It was beeping, so the line had been dead for a while, but hell if he could remember why he’d picked it up. It was the phone more than anything that made him think—

 _You’re hallucinating_.

 

**

 

He’d been drunk off his ass. He didn’t remember much else about that night, the early part anyway. Didn’t really remember choosing the club, even. It hadn’t been the proudest time of his life.

You gonna tell my dad?

It had got him going to a therapist, anyway. Got him to admit he needed something that booze and questionable sexual antics weren’t helping. Something about seeing that skinny whiny little kid there, all hard eyes and half-grown, not even old enough for stubble. He’d just had a panic. He’d panicked, and pulled the kid right off the guy he was going down on, had his badge out and screaming at everyone to get against the fucking wall or he’d shoot their fucking kneecaps out. There was no way he should have been driving, but he’d forced the kid into his car, cussing him up one side and down the other, and when he’d sobered enough to realise how badly he’d screwed up, he was halfway to the nearest free clinic. The kid had cried, when he’d seen the sign. Cried. But Duo hadn’t listened to him, at all, just marched him inside and forced him to take a rape kit. How he’d managed to forget hearing those hiccoughing sobs—he could sure remember them now. He’d stood there, so drunk he was dizzy, staring at a white curtain around the bed and thinking over and over that that kid was—

A kid. Just a kid. He was just a kid, and Duo was just a kid, and how could he save anyone when he was riding a fast train down the gutter himself.

“You were pretty young,” Shazza said.

Duo blinked, and stuck the Styrofoam tea cup into the holder by the gearshift. “I think I’m pretty now I’m old, too.”

She grinned fleetingly. “I meant when you joined Preventers. I didn’t have a clue what I wanted to do when I was nineteen.”

“I didn’t really know if Preventers was going to be a career. They brought me on for a specific case. I just stayed on, after.” He unlatched his safety belt. “We should go in back. The front’s just a front. Probably a bar.”

“Yeah.” She looked thoughtfully at him. “They told us it was new management.”

“They lied. Places like these don’t really turn over.” He opened his door, and set foot down on pavement. Nadia was getting out of the backseat behind him. Duo glanced down at her shoes, pert little heels in a bright green. He wished he’d thought to ask her to put on something else. “Follow the trail of trash,” he said, and pointed to the alley stuffed with rusting garbage bins.

It was early enough that the clean-up crews were still there. The club itself probably hadn’t closed before dawn. Duo pretended to ignore the broken-nosed hulk who was sweeping confetti and condoms into the street. He just aimed himself at the ‘Staff Only’ door, sure he wouldn’t be stopped if he didn’t stop himself to ask for permission. He was right. The girls stayed a few steps behind him, the clicks of their shoes turning into muffled shuffling when they hit the shag carpet in the service corridor. It was pitch black.

“Straight and to the left,” Duo said. That part of the memory was crystal. He’d never forgot a floorplan in his life. You never knew when you’d have to go running from something or other. He turned, and turned his shoulder, too, just in time to push a swinging door open. He tried not to touch it with bare skin.

The club was almost exactly as he remembered. He supposed it hadn’t actually been that long—nine, ten years. The shit on the walls was different. About as classy as a porn store. But there were still sagging beds lining the walls, a couple of acrobatic-looking lounges and the hobby horses with cuffs and harness hanging off them. The big projection screens were blank, showing their age. The whole place smelled enough to turn his stomach.

“Jesus,” he heard Nadia mutter.

“Hey, we’re closed.” It was a weedy-looking man, slumped on a stool at the edge of the hot tub, operating a gurgling drain hose. “Get outta here.”

Duo propped an elbow on the edge of the pool. It took a certain amount of effort not to look into it. “They give cops special permission,” he said casually.

The man’s lined face went sour. “We got a permit.”

“I don’t care what you got or who comes here to get it.” There was a crash of breaking glass across the room. “I’m looking for Big Eddie.”

“Who?”

“Ran the place about ten years ago.” It was the cleaning crew. There was some scrambled Spanish, and then a fat woman stumped past with a broom. “We want to talk to him.”

“I don’t know him.”

“I’ve flashed you the signal about five times, douchebag.” Duo kicked the switch on the drain, and it glugged to a stop. “Tell me where Eddie is. I’m not here to arrest him.”

“Man, he retired. He don’t run the place no more.” He spat into the pool, wiped his mouth on his sleeve. “You want the new guy? Dilts’ll be in tonight, if he manages to sleep it off.”

“If I wanted the new guy, I’d ask for him. I want Eddie.” Duo slipped his hand from his pocket. Suddenly sharp eyes dropped to his fingers. He felt a quick brush, slightly sticky, and let the twenty slip out of his grip.

“He got a room upstairs. He should be there. Got himself a piece of ass last night.” The man spat again, and restarted the drain. “If not, he works Thursdays and Sundays. The older crowd always liked him.” He squinted at Duo. “You familiar. I know you?”

“Let’s sincerely hope not.” Duo nodded to the women. Nadia was struggling to hide her disgust, but Shazza was watching closely. “There’s a back stairs. We’ll try that first.”

“What was the signal?” Shazza asked him. Duo stepped back to send her and Nadia through the door first, this time, and pointed them toward the stairs. “Duo? The signal you said you were flashing him.”

“One of those underground things,” he said briefly. He wasn’t sure about the room. There were a few up there, it looked like. “All’s clear, I’m cool, kind of thing.”

“I didn’t realise Preventers worked on Vice,” Nadia said. She slipped in a wet patch of carpet, and Duo caught her with a hand to her back. “This place is filthy. Who the hell comes here?”

People without a lot of other place to go.

“I didn’t see you do the signal. Show me what it was?” Shazza interrupted.

“Maybe some other time. That’s the one,” he added quickly, pointing to the door with an upside-down ‘3’ nailed to the front. It was the biggest of the apartments, and Eddie wouldn’t go with less, not if he was still working the place and still held the deed. He leant past the girls and banged on the door with his fist. “San Francisco Police,” he yelled. “Open up.”

“He’s going to go right out the nearest window if you keep up that police thing,” Nadia rebuked him.

“He might want to, but he don’t fit. ‘Big Eddie’ is more like an adjective than a nickname.”

It took a long time, and there was a lot of muffled banging and cursing on the other side of the door, but eventually it opened. The man on the other side was at least dressed, which was why Duo had called out ‘police’. A huge, bald black man, Eddie glared muzzily at them, then pushed the door wide.

“Ain’t got much to search,” he rumbled.

“Not here for that.” Duo hid his hand by his side, just to keep Shazza from seeing, and made an outward-facing fist with his thumb crossed over his other fingers. Eddie’s eyes flicked down, then back to his face. “We have some questions,” Duo added. “We’re investigating the murder of a boy who used to come here.”

“We card everyone,” Eddie said promptly. “At the door and at the bar. No-one underage.”

“Because there’s no market for kiddie sex,” Nadia retorted. “Not in a fine establishment like this one.”

Dark eyes that were suddenly quite awake turned to the women. Eddie looked them over, one by one. Duo stood still and impervious to his own turn. Eddie lingered on his hair. Duo was sure he’d been recognised, this time, but Eddie at least did him the favour of letting it go silent.

“No-one underage,” he repeated. “This place may be a piece of shit, but I’m in no hurry to see it shut down.” He left the doorway and shuffled back to his suite. Shazza clearly took it as invitation, and followed on his heels. Nadia was next. Duo trailed, slower, and nudged the door shut behind them.

Eddie settled heavily on a low-slung sofa of stained red velvet. It creaked noisily under his weight. “Where the fuck you go?” he hollered. The women jumped, but it wasn’t directed at them. A white guy came out of what was probably a bath, a ciggy hanging from pierced lips. “Be fucking useful,” Eddie said. “Make coffee or something. You want a real drink?” he asked over his shoulder.

“It’s a little early for some of us. Coffee’s fine.” Duo revised his estimate of the smoker’s age down five years when he noticed the track marks on the forearms. “He looks like a real nice guy.”

“Fuckin’ bitch.” Eddie gestured them to the open seats around the suite. “Who’s this kid you’re here about?”

“His name was Kelby Gerganas. He went by Kel.” Nadia produced their picture. Eddie plucked it out of her hand and sat back with it, his thick lips twisted into a scowl of concentration that might even have been real.

“However he got in here,” Duo said, “the fact is that he did. Several times.”

“Fake ID.” Eddie finally tossed the picture back at Nadia. “More sophisticated every night. Any idiot with photoshop can age a pic. They paste it on a real card. My guys, they know what to look for, but they don’t speak real good English, you know, so sometimes stuff gets past ‘em.”

“You remember him at all? He was fourteen. He was killed right on your damn doorstep, Eddie.”

“Ohh, he’s the one.” The guy with the piercings was back. He put a mug of lukewarm coffee in Duo’s hand, but Nadia and Shazza both declined. “Get the hell out of here,” Eddie told him. To Duo, he said, “Yeah, I remember that. It was my night off. I come by in the morning and there’s cops and reporters and all kinds of shit. Bad press like that almost shut us down. You didn’t catch who did it yet?”

“The case went cold. That all you told the cops the first time? You weren’t there, didn’t see anything?”

“Yeah. Never even knew who the kid was. Cute little white boy like that, I woulda remembered.” Eddie glanced at Nadia, who was frowning. “Remembered for kicking him out.”

“You’re selectively blind, Eddie?” Shazza said. “We told you this boy was in your club several times.”

Duo redirected Eddie’s attention quickly. “Tell me something you do remember. Any types in here who got violent or made trouble. Would’ve been September, October, back in 199.”

“199.” Eddie scratched his thigh, at the risk of revealing too much in his short robe. “I don’t know about September or October, but we did have a lot of shit go down that year. I remember ‘cause that was the year we added the private rooms.” His eyes lingered on Duo. “Troublemakers. Yeah, I remember one. Even a place like this has limits. He didn’t listen to safewords. Beat a guy to shreds before the bouncers stopped him. Blond, big guy-- tall-big, I mean. I kicked him out myself, but my floor manager let him back in a couple weeks later. Brought his own drugs. Took three of my biggest boys to take him down.”

“You call the police?” Shazza asked.

Eddie laughed. “This look like the kind of place that wants attention? He thought he was hot shit, anyway. Kept screaming we’d be sorry, ‘cause he was someone important. Whatever. Important people don’t want attention here any more than we do.”

“This crazy guy have a type?” Duo picked up the picture. “Give me something to go on, Big.”

“A type? Yeah, I guess.” Eddie scratched his crotch again. “The first guy was small, I think. A sub, you know? The kind who’s too delicate for the tough stuff but likes to be held down and lick a little boot polish. He didn’t come back, neither.”

“Thanks.” Duo caught Nadia’s eyes. “I think that’s all we need. You think of anything—“ He pulled a card from his pocket and scribbled his mobile number on it. “Maybe something you remember when there’s not three people breathing down your neck.”

He got a deep belly laugh for that. Eddie even took the card. “Yeah, kid,” he said. “I’ll do that.”

 

**

 

“Wufei.”

Three feet ahead of him, Quatre leaned over to murmur something in Relena's ear. The orchestra was swelling to some ungodly climax. There were still two hours to go.

“Wufei.”

“What, Miriam.” He did not face her, for the sole purpose of further annoying her. Quatre's sister had a particular way of saying his name that was more effective than nails on a blackboard.

“He's got a call.”

“So give him the mobile and let him answer it.”

“He's got to be seen paying attention!” She sounded shocked. He was sure it was an act. Even Miriam couldn't be that out of touch with reality. Certainly Quatre's attendance was a political gesture and the right people were supposed to be watching him every bit as much as much as the symphony below, but Quatre had spent almost as much time whispering to his fiance as paying the proper attention.

Wufei plucked the mobile from her hand. She protested, but he was already out of his seat and moving toward the curtain-covered access to Quatre's private box. He left her spluttering behind as he ducked into the suffocating quiet of the corridor. He put the vibrating phone to his ear.

“This is Chang, answering for the Foreign Minister,” he said.

_“Quatre?”_

It took a moment to recognise the voice. He hadn't spoken to the man in three months.

He drew a deep breath, and just as quickly was embarrassed of himself. “Trowa,” he said gruffly. “I'm sorry, Quatre can't come to the phone.”

 _“Wufei?”_ There was a long pause there. _“I... I need to talk to Quatre.”_

“We're at a concert. I'm sorry, he can't step out right now.” The walls were draped in what the building manager had told them was authentic Chinese silk imported in 1898 pre-colony. The age-bronzed threads traced over bamboo fields between Wufei's fingertips. “How are you?”

_“I need to talk to Quatre. Damn it, he won't return my calls. He's mad at me. It's fine. I deserve... I need to talk to Quatre.”_

He sounded distressed. But if there had been calls, much less calls unreturned, Wufei would have known. There hadn't been anything in weeks. In fact Quatre had called Trowa, just four days ago.

_“Damn it, please, Quatre, talk to me.”_

Wufei stuck his head back into the box. He snapped, twice. Both Quatre and Relena turned to look, and Miriam too.

Phone, he mouthed, and waggled it in the air. He held up three fingers.

Quatre slid out of his seat immediately. Relena watched him go, her expression inscrutable in the dim. Light from the stage below cast strange shadows over her smooth face.

“Trowa,” Quatre answered the mobile. “It's me. How are-- Tro-- Why would I be mad at you? What did you do now?" He glanced up at Wufei with an amused smile.

He was a watcher. It was a role he'd assigned himself at the age of five, in the arrogance of youth. He'd been told all his short life he was smarter, better-- better bred, better raised than the loud self-centred children of lesser families. Of course it had been true; it was obvious to Wufei, certainly. He had been the child who hung back, who would not climb trees with the other boys, who preferred to read, not play. He had agreed to a marriage when he was thirteen, the youngest in decades, younger even than his great-mother who had come all the way from China when she was fifteen to marry his great-grandfather and unite the Long Clan with its ancient cousins on Earth. That was Wufei's honour, too, uniting the Long Clan again, and her name was Meiran, and when they asked him if he wanted to see a picture of her first, he'd said no. He was a watcher. He knew his duty, but more than that he knew what was whispered between his elders late a night. He knew Meiran was being trained to pilot a new kind of mobile suit, and he knew that his clan had the money hers didn't that was needed to build it. It was a marriage of necessity.

Not like Quatre and Relena. Mostly. Oh, there was a certain inevitability to it. They were rich, attractive, political young people. They had been thrown together by destiny, not the elders, but they had circled in orbit on aligned paths for so long the idea almost occurred naturally. They would never be passionate, but they would have affection, they might even have love, one day; they were adults making a choice that might have been made exactly the same way if there hadn't been a war. But there had been, and of all people, they were two of the most determined that there would never be again, as long as they had power to prevent it.

So Temple Mayfield said. Our best days lie ahead, he'd told them both. Our best chance to grab our party away from the conservative old men pretending they were the better half of Romafeller.

I'm looking at the 210 ticket for the Presidency.

"What are you talking about?" Quatre's voice turned concerned. "I miss you too, but you haven't been an asshole lately-- that I know about."

Except for the skeletons in the closet. There was a weird kind of optimism these days, Wufei had noticed. Back in 199, even the new century, the world had still been recognisably the world that Wufei had been born into. He had joined the Preventers in 200, and the very day he was instated there had been a thousands-strong protest against the militia unit-- disarm, no more mobile suits, let the people govern themselves. Duo had been a Preventer already, two years by then, and Wufei almost found it hard to remember what he'd been like then, a skinny man-child, sullen-tempered, angry. Anxious. Wufei had just moved to San Francisco to join the Preventers, and he'd asked Duo to meet him for coffee, to talk to him about the things Une wasn't going to tell him. He'd wanted to know if he could count on the men in his new squad, the ex-White Fang, the ex-OZ. It was almost hard to remember how Duo had stared down into his coffee, instead of meeting his eyes. You think you know, Duo had said, so quiet it was almost voiceless. You think you know if they'll have your back, but you won't, not until the bullets fly.

But these days it was all so civil. The economy was strong. Government debated education reform, not munitions demolition. Quatre had run on a pro-integration platform when he'd run for Vice Foreign, the first to so much as say that word on television since the first Heero Yuy was assassinated by the Federation.

"Okay." Quatre wandered to the opposite wall. There was another trumpet-heavy swell of music inside. "I'd like to see you, too. You never visit me."

Greedy of Trowa, in a way. To have a man like Duo, and still say Quatre’s name in that voice, with that longing. But childhood loves were the hardest to let go. And Quatre never lit up, like that, for Relena.

They all had their own unfinished business. He’d thought he’d known. He’d thought—surely, once they knew, that they would do what they were trained to do, what they’d taken oath after oath after oath to do. They wouldn’t leave him to the wolves, not these men. They were still friends, despite the passage of time, despite the minor regrets—despite the major ones. But they were Preventers, and before that they were Gundam Pilots.

He’d been wrong. About Duo. Duo had had his back. He’d thought he’d known what they would all do, but when the bullets had flown, Duo had been there to take each one for him. The honourable execution he’d been waiting for, longing for, had been snatched from him.

"Lose me?” Quatre straightened. He looked baffled. He didn't even see Wufei, he was that concentrated, but it was all confusion, all sudden worry. “Trowa, what's going on? What's wrong?"

He honestly could not say that he would have done what Duo had done, if he had been the one to figure it out, if another had carried the guilt he had. Maybe, if it had been Duo who had been guilty. Saying that Duo was special when they were all special was practically meaningless, but—Duo was. Duo was special, in a way not even Quatre was. Quatre, he was still unsure of. He trusted Quatre with his life, had even put his life in Quatre’s hands three months ago, in the most spiritual way possible. Yet Quatre had taken just a little more than he was comfortable with, had kept for himself just a little too much power over Wufei—and Quatre was no more incapable of a monumental mistake than Wufei himself. On his darkest nights he found chaotic, compelling similarities between them. Of all of them, Quatre, not Trowa in his cynicism or Heero in his bullheaded impulsiveness or Duo who had come to love justice and truth—of all of them, Quatre, handsome accomplished Quatre was the next most capable of committing the acts that Wufei had. They were both ‘wrapped tightly’, as Duo liked to say. The other three were orphans by birth, but he and Quatre had both lost their families in the midst of estrangement, and had felt the same grief and guilt. They had both been treasured heirs; they felt the same pressures—the same disappointments. Both of them expected more of their fellow man than could reasonably be delivered. But Quatre had escaped some of the ugliness of his station; he had sidestepped the darkness with a grace that made it look effortless—Wufei was jealous, yes. He didn’t blame Quatre, didn’t imagine it was in any way deliberate or even taken for granted, but it bothered him. And it bothered him that Quatre didn’t seem to resent any of it.

It bothered him that he was aware of it, and Quatre was not.

The only thing Quatre seemed to feel martyred for was his custodial duty to Wufei. Wufei had come to be grateful that he hadn’t been imprisoned, as he’d once wanted. Now he often wondered if it wouldn’t have been better. The alternative had cost him their friendship.

All friendship. He missed what he had had with Duo. It had surprised him, that Quatre was less—accessible, than Duo. But Quatre wasn’t Duo. He wasn’t less than Duo, but he wasn’t as much, either.

Interesting to wonder if he would have been, if he’d stayed with Trowa.

Interesting to wonder if Wufei would have been, if he’d let himself love someone like Duo. That friendship had been the easiest thing he’d ever done in his life. It had felt good, to have something so profound that was so effortless. Ironic, that it had been so hard to destroy it.

Every day passed with an increasing sense of regret. Not for what he'd done to those men, but for what he'd done to Duo. What Duo had allowed him to do. Quatre wanted him to be honest in his feelings. If he was honest, he would admit he was angry that Duo had made himself a sacrificial lamb. He hadn’t asked for that. There had been no cry for help in what he’d done.

He’d wanted to confess, after they’d arrested Duo. It had been terrifying, honestly terrifying, not knowing what to do, not knowing yet if Duo knew. He’d almost interrupted a dozen times—almost. But once the thing was in motion, no-one, most of all Duo, had wanted him to. Easy to blame them. Sometimes he did, honest or not. Duo had snatched away his chance for the moral, honourable resolution he’d dreamed of for two years. He had killed, he had righted the wrongs of the hideous infinitesimal corner of the universe he found himself in, and Duo had stolen—

"Schedule it for me?” Quatre said.

Wufei blinked out of his reverie. “Forgive me—what?”

“Could you schedule it for me? To go see Trowa.”

Trowa. That meant Trowa and—Duo. He swallowed down the rising lump of panic. It was an unworthy emotion. He unclipped his palm pilot from his pocket and flipped it on. He was blind to the tiny screen at first, but his voice was calm and level when he spoke. "We can be in the air within eighteen hours."

"That's fine. Relena has to be on L2 for a conference tomorrow night anyway." Quatre fidgeted with the antenna of the mobile, pushing it in and out. "What's your position? What would you rather?"

"I stay with you,” he answered promptly. “It's my job." He typed quickly with the edges of his thumbs, a skill he’d learned quickly as Quatre’s manager. He was online in seconds, booking a private shuttle. No-one needed to know the Foreign Minister was going anywhere, particularly if it was personal. It didn’t get more personal than Trowa Barton.

Quatre was still hesitating. "You don't have to come if you don't... want."

"I don't have a problem with it. You can relax." It was Wufei who paused, then, to question that, to question himself. "Would you rather I assigned someone else to you for this trip?"

The other man glanced inside the box. The lights went up, over their heads. Intermission. "My concern is Duo."

"I won't get in his way."

With an impatient sigh Quatre thrust the phone into his pocket. "Are you ready?"

“To be on earth?” he said. “Or to face Duo?"

"Yes."

He kept his answer clipped. He didn’t want to give anything away, though he knew Quatre hated it. Even if he’d been able to anticipate what, exactly, there was to reveal—which he couldn’t. He wasn’t sure of himself, suddenly. He hated that.

"I think I can handle it,” he said. The shuttle was booked. They would be able to drive Relena to the port. She would be pleased. She might not even have to know where her future husband was going, or why.

“Wufei—“

"I don't expect him to welcome me." He wet his dry lips, and put the palm pilot away. "I can behave."

He did not expect to have moved Quatre. It had happened, rarely, these last months. Quatre hid as much from him as the reverse. They were not friends, not right now. But out came Quatre’s hand, cool and gentle, curving to his cheek.

He leaned into it. Just for a moment. His heart hammered, and he told it severely to stop being so silly.

Because it was over as quickly as it had happened, as if Quatre had caught himself in a weakness and was embarrassed of it. Their eyes met, accidentally. Wufei looked away first.

"It can be any way you prefer,” he said, tone carefully deferential. “I can pull Agrawal from Miriam's detail. He'd be relieved."

"No. I trust your word."

He couldn’t help being relieved. Who knew why. Things were about to get unbearably—unknown.

Quatre gave Wufei a quick kiss to the cheek. "Bring them a gift. He'll like it." He ducked through the curtains just as voices presaged the appearance of people leaving their boxes. Wufei stepped aside quickly as an elderly couple passed him, headed for the stairs and the bar. He stayed against the wall where he ended out, not sure he could gather himself to move further.

 

**

 

“What is this shit on all the files?” Duo said. He rubbed it with the side of his hand, but it wouldn’t come off.

Nadia glanced over his shoulder. “Looks like blood.”

“Catsup,” Marquez said. He raised his own sandwich an inch higher. “It’s probably catsup.”

“Gross.” Duo couldn’t help another swipe of the hand, but the stuff was a decade imprinted into the file. “I can’t read half of what’s under it.”

“It’s not that bad.” Marquez ripped the file away from Duo and flipped it to face himself. “It’s just on the copy of the kid’s diary. Probably nothing. ‘Dear Diary, today I met—‘”

“’A guy who wants to murder me?’” Shazza interrupted.

“’Bradmin Beringer from the Stepback Boyz. He’s so dreamy.’” He let Duo take the file back. “The first cops didn’t think anything in there was important.”

“And they did a real bang-up job.” Shazza finished her salad and tossed the container into the trash. “Duo, did you have any luck reaching the doctor from the clinic?”

“His daughter says he’s on holiday and won’t be back for two more weeks. No mobile and no satellite.”

“Romantic getaway.” She caught all of her hair into a tail behind her head and gripped hard. Duo used the eraser end of his pencil to flick one of the little braids that had escaped her hands, and she laughed as she swatted at him. “Lemme alone. Or the next time you go for a catnap in the crib, you’re gonna wake up looking like this.” She pulled his plait, and they both laughed.

Marquez had a sour expression when Duo glanced at him. “You two girlfriends mind concentrating on the case?”

“Don’t be a jerk.” She sat up straight. “Look, there’s no-where else to go with this. We don’t know anything new. Forensics got nothing new, the witnesses got nothing new, the parents didn’t even know the vic was sneaking out to clubs. I think we should try to track down who was at the club.”

“How?” Nadia spread her hands. “I think so too, but there’s no video anymore, if there ever was. There’s no log-in sheet. Big Eddie wasn’t much help. Duo didn’t remember anyone out of the ordinary from the club either.”

“Or he said he didn’t.” Marquez ignored the glares that came from both women at that. He licked his fingertips and brushed crumbs from his tie, eyes on Duo the whole while. “Trying to save yourself some embarrassment? The whole world already knows you’re gay. Not going to surprise anyone in here you’re a deviant, too.”

“That’s enough,” Shazza started.

“Oh, come on. You didn’t just accidentally walk into a sex club thinking you’d find some teenagers to save,” Marquez persisted. “Just admit you were there—“

“Stop it, Rico.”

“Let him get it out of his system,” Duo said.

His calm answer was enough to derail Marquez. Duo had known it would. He waited, face as pleasant and unprovocative as he could make it. Marquez got out one final stutter, and then he went into a slow flush of embarrassment.

Duo let it go on like that just long enough to make his point, and not a second longer. “It’s a good idea, actually,” he said then, and everyone’s eyes swivelled back to him. Marquez twitched into an uncertain glower, and then Duo looked away from him, too. “If we could compile any kind of frequent customer manifest, maybe I would recognise a face or two. Eddie told us the troublemaker was a big guy, right? Big guys with big tempers don’t make trouble at just one place, they make trouble at a lot of them, and they do it often, right? I think if we ask around at some of the other clubs in the area we might turn something up. And frankly I think we should get someone in Exilio to talk to the, uh, clientele. The community has a collective memory. Bad guys get remembered, and so do guys who sleep with fourteen year old boys.”

“Except they’re not going to just come out and admit it.” Nadia glanced at Marquez, then back to Duo. “Not to cops. We go in there openly, and half the room’s going to slip out the back door.”

“Duo could go back. That signal you know? The secret handshake?” Shazza smiled at him. “They wouldn’t necessarily know you’re a cop. Eddie might get you in as a favour.”

“He might.” It wasn’t quite what Duo had had in mind, but it wasn’t unrealistic. It wasn’t like Duo had ever told them he was a Preventer when he’d been handing over his cover fee at the door. The only good cop at a sex club was the kind in costume chaps.

“Captain has to authorise undercover.” Marquez was gruff, but it was moderately professional. “Even for something like this. If we’re going to do it, we should get the paperwork started. And someone should go with Maxwell.”

“Who, you?” Shazza snorted.

“Yeah,” Duo said. “Actually.” Shazza was not the only person who stared at him for that. Duo waved a hand, surprised they hadn’t followed his logic. “He’s the only other guy on the case, isn’t he?”

“We could still go,” Shazza protested. “Women could get in.”

“If I show up with a woman it’s going to look odd. If you and Nadia went together, that’d be fine, but women who go together to that place aren’t going to spend a lot of time with a gay man, are they?” He shrugged them both off and appealed directly to Marquez. “If you’re cool with it, you’re the best choice.”

He’d phrased it deliberately to be unchallenging, even encouraging. It was a patch on a bad attitude, and it didn’t work brilliantly, but he got a nod for it, a little curl of a lip that was definitely condescending, but at least stopped short of saying aloud what Duo was pretty damn sure was waiting to come out.

“Great,” he said. “So let’s get that paperwork.”

 

 

 

“Hey,” Duo said. “You got a minute?”

“If it’s personal, I don’t care and I don’t have the time,” Marquez snotted over his shoulder. He slammed his locker shut.

“That’s funny, because that’s exactly what I was going to say to you.” Duo leaned on the lockers, and kept his arms loosely curled around his chest. “Walk away if you want, but this crap between us is going to come up at some point, and I think we’d both rather that it doesn’t happen sometime professionally embarrassing.”

That, if nothing else, got him the attention he wanted. Marquez went stiff, but he didn’t, at least, leave.

So Duo went on without waiting for a response. He said, “If it’s about me being a Gundam Pilot, you’re not the first to have a problem. If it’s about me being gay, we can just avoid talking about it, because that’s none of your business, and it’s something you’ll have to learn to live with.” He was halfway sure that was it. He gave just enough time for Marquez to jump in, but the other man was silent. “If it’s about the murder trial, we—“

“Trial,” Marquez spat out, and the vehemence actually startled Duo, because he’d been shooting in the dark on that one. The other man turned to face him. “What about that verdict?”

“I didn’t do it,” Duo interrupted. “The jury—“

“Should have strung you up on contempt of court. You may not have done it, but you know who did, don’t you?”

That outright stunned him. He couldn’t do anything but flap his jaw for a minute.

“You know who did it and you not only protected the bastard, you walked away without telling the truth.” Marquez nearly ripped a sleeve off his jacket stuffing his arm in too hard. “And you’re rewarded with a ‘not guilty’ and a great job and just like that it’s all over for you. Well, I’m not the Captain. I don’t have the Preventers standing over me waving a big stick. I wouldn’t have hired you and I damn well don’t want to work with you, so don’t wait for me to fall for the smile and the good-guy act. You are exactly what’s wrong with the system, man. Dirty cops protecting each other, and who cares about the people anyway?”

“The people?” Duo sucked in a deep breath. “Let me tell you something about the _people_. Every single one of the miserable scumbags who were killed were walking on the streets because they had money and connections. The person who killed them may not have been aces-up, but you can’t argue to me that in the bigger picture what happened is going to make the world a worse place to be.”

“So glad it was easy for you to justify.”

“Damn right it was.” There was weight on his chest, weight and a burning sensation. He clenched his hands into fists to stop himself from touching it. “I don’t expect you to understand, I never asked you to understand. There’s a difference between the truth and the people. The people don’t have a God-damn clue what we do to keep the bad guys from their door, and they’ve got even less about what got sacrificed giving them this pretty shiny world where everyone can sit on their hands for months on end watching a cop on trial for killing killers.”

“Oh, here it comes.” Marquez sneered at him. “The Gundam Pilot speech we’ve all been waiting for.”

It wouldn’t do any good. He knew it wouldn’t do any good, had been down this exact same path before and knew, knew it. But he still had the bitter taste in his mouth that meant adrenaline surging, felt a shake in the hands coming on.

“The one thing,” he managed. He had to push it out from clenched teeth, clench his jaws to stop the rest from coming out in the scream he could hear going in his head. “The one thing no-one on this planet or otherwise has the right to say to me is that I didn’t give everything I had in me. You may not like how I did it, you may think my politics are bad or that I’m bad or whatever the fuck is your problem with me, but you do not have the right to denigrate what I did. And I am still here, Marquez, I am still trying to make a difference, I still believe that living through all of it has to have meaning, and whether you accept it or not that brought us to the same job, to the same mission. So the next time you jump up on your high horse about the _people_ you can remember that you are hardly the first to feel a moral imperative.”

And then he was outside. There was just a black hole, grating out the most controlled reaction he could manage, and there was standing outside in the blast of freezing wind from the alley, shivering from feeling like his head might explode.

He knew better. Marquez was a no-body, a no-body just like every no-body who’d ever challenged him about it. Trowa could keep a cool head when people shouted at them from the street. Heero could. He’d watched Quatre answer whole booing crowds at rallies and been so proud of his unflinching honesty. But Duo had never been able to just sit there and let it fly over him.

He wiped his eyes. The wind was making them sting. Outside in the freezing spring without his coat. He really was an idiot.

An idiot who had to go back inside. He didn’t even know how long he’d been standing in the alley. He wanted to call Trowa. He wanted to call Trowa so much he could’ve kicked something. Just to hear his voice. Trowa would probably just make fun of him for being such an easy target, but he was right, anyway, so maybe Duo could’ve laughed about it, then, and he’d be able to go back inside and sit through the safety brief and go into tonight with locker room bitch fights out of sight and out of mind.

He went back in when he couldn’t feel his fingers for the cold.

 

**

 

Their guy was a High Court justice. Trowa didn’t know anything more about him than that, and didn’t have to. It was the kind of job that was a dime a dozen. Courts were always pissing someone off, a cartel or a mob boss or who knew what. In Trowa’s experience it usually came down to drugs and guns, and if it was especially kinky, sex for a little spice. Marc Addison could only dream of a career important enough to cross that kind of danger.

Une’s extractor had chosen the train station. Serviceable, as these things went. Lots of noise, lots of innocent ignorant human shields, big metal coming and going and generally creating the kind of distraction you wanted when you were doing something illegal. Trowa spent an entire day wandering it, marking exits, marking security stations, traffic patterns. How many people in which café for how long, who lingered where on which platforms. He stood in every shadow until someone passing by noticed him, and he remembered how long it took. He remembered every spot where a footstep echoed, and every kiosk large enough to duck around and disappear, and every rafter where a pigeon sat that might be persuaded to fly with a well-timed scare. It was practically second nature. It was practically— fun.

Work for the lawyers. He got why Duo wanted it. He’d always figured Duo would reach that age before him, want to be settled, want to play house. He’d thought he’d have a little longer.

He wasn't sure yet if he was considering it except in the way he considered anything Duo wanted, which was to say he considered it if it was going to shut Duo up for a while. He spent half their damn relationship considering all wild kinds of nonsense he didn't give a crap about.

He was an asshole in his own head, sometimes.

He was three hours early, the next morning, cutting it close out of sheer confidence in how easy it was going to be. He chose a second-storey men's room that overlooked the ground-level train platform and hung a stolen 'out of order' sign on the door. It took all of fifteen minutes to remove the inside vent cover and arrange the tripod stand for his rifle through the slats on the outer wall vent. He made it through the double espresso he'd bought at the only cafe with an Italian name; it was mediocre, at best, but by the end of it he was riding a good caffeine high and feeling focussed and on. He was ready.

The service from Olomouc was late five minutes. There was a thick crowd on the platform below him, lot of people, mid-day traffic. A group of Japanese tourists taking pictures of the grey sky over the tracks, and a group near them of Czech girls in short leather jackets with big lapels turned up under their short dark hair. He did like this country. He wished Duo was here to see it. Duo would have liked it, too.

There. The bell rang three times, and the train was coming around the edge. Trowa crouched on top of the john and sighted down the scope. Second car from the front, first class. Time did the weird slow-down-crunch thing it did when he was deep in the moment. The train coasted in to the station gently, smooth as a blade through butter. The big steam-puff sighs it made, huge sleek black beast, slowing to a graceful stop. Doors slid open like a dream, and people debarked.

The justice came off, middle man in a group of black-suited hirsute guards. They had government badges, but they weren't government; Trowa could pick government security out of a tornado at a hundred yards. These guys were private hire bad boys. And the justice was afraid of them. He didn't want to touch any of them, but one, a chunky red-head, kept grabbing his arm to hustle him along. They made it down the steps and the baddies bulled a path through the crowd, shoving people out of their way.

Good so far, tense but good. None of them so much as noticed the laser sight dancing between them.

There was Baldy, materialising out of the newspaper stand. “Shit,” Trowa said, and went up straight on his knees. “Shit, not yet, you idiot.”

There was Baldy, too freaking early, getting the whole fucking thing wrong. Trowa fired, and the red-head dropped like a sack of grain, but Baldy had already fucked up and there was no time. Screams started from the Japanese tourists right before the guard throwing the justice to the floor pulled his piece and blew Baldy's face off.

Fuck. The crowd exploded as people tried to run and created a mess. He lost all possibility of a solid target before he could even attempt a second shot. The remaining three guards were throwing the justice toward the emergency exit. Trowa left the rifle where it was and hurtled out of the bathroom. Security was pouring out of the watch rooms, guns out, doing wonders for upping the panic level. The whole place echoed with it in an unrelenting roar.

He lost considerable time on the stairs, until he gave up fighting the flow of mindless mob swarming up off the platform. He climbed over the side and dropped to the concrete ten feet below, tucking and rolling and coming back to his feet with just the numb shiver of impact on the soft flesh of his thigh and arm. There was a big swath of empty by the train except for Baldy and the red-head and the scarlet stains they were making on the ground. Someone turned on an alarm, whatever idiot was running the place, and he all but went deaf with it.

There. They were taking the justice toward the service tunnel. Trowa zeroed in on the first security man he passed and full-body tackled him, knocking him brainless with a sharp impact on the pavement. He grabbed the gun and the badge and sprinted off before he could get caught at it. Instinct and muscle memory caught up just a second later, though, and he crashed to the ground himself, just as the camera over the service door swept toward him. His heart hammered. It hadn't caught his face-- he was sure he'd been quick enough-- but it was too near for comfort. He couldn't afford any mistakes, not now.

An agonising fifteen seconds before the camera made a revolution away from him, swinging back to the left. He made a dash for the door the guards had gone through. The key pad lock was sporting a bullet hole, now, and the door opened at his touch. It was an old brick corridor, smelling of dank water and mould. Dim red lights at wide spacing.

Shouting, and steel-toed boots pounding quickly along. They were headed for the surface.

Time went flying by, heartbeat by heartbeat. They heard him coming, no way to avoid it. He saw guns going up, and-- whatever shred of plan he'd thought he'd had vanished. Sudden screaming flash of panic, and then--

“Arrêt!” he shouted. “Attente! Je suis police. Suivez-moi de cette façon!”

It threw them off, at least. No-one fired at him. Still riding that crazy frantic high, he ran right up to them, throwing the badge in their faces, babbling at them in French to follow him, to trust him, this way to safety. I saw the whole thing, he told them, je les ai vus vous attaquer, hurry, messieurs--

It shouldn't have worked. There was no Earth under any Sun where that should have worked, but something out there smiled on him and it was just stupidly chaotic and insane enough to convince them he was legit. The one who'd killed Baldy said something back in Czech, he didn't understand it, but the man moved, and the other two both had hands on the justice, who looked like he was in full-on shock--

Not full-on. He was awake enough to vomit, when Trowa shot all three of his guards in the back.

“Je suis un Preventer,” Trowa told him, in the middle of wiping the gun off on his shirt and dropping it on the nearest body. Couldn't believe it had worked. The mind was in overdrive, a little hysterical. “Parlez-vous français? Pouvez-vous me comprende? Je vous apporterai à un endroit sûr. Je vous apporterai à nos amis.”

No resistance left in the man, if there ever had been any. He went where Trowa pulled him, same as he had with the dead guards.

The security corridor let out on a closed alley. They had to climb a fire escape, high enough to risk being seen by the assemblage of real police and evacuees gathering around the corner. Trowa took the first roof, the first storey above ground, and he pushed the justice into a run going across it, away from the front of the building, away from the danger of being discovered. They had to jump from the roof onto a covered walkway, but the justice went when Trowa made a few hand gestures to explain it, never asked a question or made a peep except when he landed badly on an ankle. Trowa slipped a shoulder under his arm and took his weight, as much as possible. No time left to lose.

And then, finally, safety. The covered walkway let out into the patron parking in the back. Once they got on the ground they were just faces in the crowd, nothing remarkable at all when everyone was sobbing or excitedly repeating what had happened. Trowa heard everything in a wash of foreign voices, remote like he'd turned the television low and forgot it was on. The justice limped along with him through all the talking people, until the crowd thinned, until it was just them and cars, row after row of cars he wasn't even paying attention to until he realised suddenly he was looking at his motorcycle, the rental he'd been using. Not built for two, but it was big enough if they didn't have to go far, if they didn't--

He didn't know where the rendezvous was. That wasn't part of his job. Baldy was the only one who'd known, and Baldy was colder than yesterday's fried eggs back there.

“Get on the bike,” he said. “Montez sur le vélo. Allez.”

The man was trembling, fine little tremor all over his body. “Qui êtes-vous?”

“Preventers. Get on the fucking bike.”

“Vous... vous n'êtes pas Osmond.”

Osmond. You are not Osmond.

His throat was too dry to swallow. They were out in the damn open, and the guy wanted to argue names. “Osmond,” Trowa said, just sound to fill the air. “Osm-- Baldy. No. Non. Osmond es mort. You knew-- vous avez su que nous viendrions pour vous.”

“Oui. Pas quand.”

Fuck, so messed up. So messed up. His throat was so damn dry it made him cough, but his hands were the only pair steady enough between them to drive. “You knew we were coming for you, so maybe you know where the meet-up's supposed to be. You understand me? Rendez-vous? Où est-il?”

“Franti kánská zahrada.”

The Franciscan Garden. Over in Wenceslas Square. Public. Poetic. Preventers always liked that kind of bullshit.

“Get on the bike,” he said. “Partons.”

 

**

 

Just to be safe, he wiped down the motorcycle and ditched it in a copse outside the city. He walked back, four miles into the outskirts, until he caught a bus passing by on the last service before nightfall.

The students were having some kind of party when he got back to his hotel. A teenaged girl offered him a drink before she realised he wasn't one of her buddies. He took the beer anyway, and watched her blush, then eye him speculatively. He drank it, there in the stairwell with her making eyes at him, tired enough that he wasn't even amused by it. He left her with the empty bottle and trudged up with her stuttering at his back. He locked the door and stuffed a towel under the bottom edge, and then he went face-down on the mattress for a long while, empty as the bottle, in the dark.

Feeling came back first as a pinch in the toes from the boots, an itch where the zipper of his jacket scratched his skin, an uncomfortable tingle in his fingertips that meant a nerve pinched by his angle. The mind started making signs of waking up, floating thoughts that became a growing sense of dread and depression.

Wouldn't have made much difference, even if he'd been faster on the trigger. Baldy hadn't waited for him. Baldy'd made the decision, go in without waiting. Should have waited for Trowa. Amateurs made that mistake, not seasoned field ops. Dead amateurs.

Five dead, all told. Hell of a day.

Didn't it just figure. Just when he started to think Duo was just possibly right and it was just possibly time to quit, and he'd probably be fired, for this. Such utter fucking hell of a mess. And it was like having a lover dump you. Even if you'd wanted it to end, even if it was that bad, you still wanted to be the one to kiss it off, and--

I'm sorry, Duo had said, a year ago, polite little voice that could have come from a stranger. I'm not having fun anymore. I'm not me anymore, when I'm with you.

When he finally moved, it was to pick up the phone.

She listened in silence for most of it. He got to the part about placing blame and laid it square where it belonged, and that was when she interrupted, cutting him off like a garrote around the windpipe.

_“You barely met the man, you're making character assassinations now?”_

Maybe they should just can him. At least Duo would be happy.

"I don't give a shit about him one way or other,” he said. He managed to turn onto his back. The room was pitch black, no light even from the window with the curtains pulled. All the noise from the party downstairs was muted, distant. “He moved prematurely and the job went down sloppily because of it. If the justice hadn't known--"

 _"Shit falls on the survivor,”_ Une interrupted. _“When you get back you'll have to come up before the division heads. Have a better explanation than indicting the dead man."_

"Right."

_"You're sure your identity wasn't compromised?"_

"No-one was near me long enough to identify me as anything but a tourist. Even the justice only knows I'm a Preventer."

_"Do you need aid getting out of the country?"_

"No.” He wanted another beer. He wanted to sleep for a few days. He had a headache. “Have you sent a cleaner for Osmond?"

_"The locals will worry about it."_

"Then unless there's anything else you need, I have two more cathedrals to see tomorrow, then I'm heading home."

 _"Come in on Monday,”_ she said. _“Use the back door."_

Dial tone. He lay there listening to it, minute after minute, because it was at least consistent.

Lulled by it. Dull single note. Not quite music, but enough.

Dreaming.

Dreaming? Probably. Everything felt magical, in that sense that nothing was really under his control but it was all right, because everything happened anyway and he was just accepting of it, and some corner of his mind was all right with that. He was showering, which was a funny thing to dream about, and he could smell the lime-sage bath soap he was using, except not really, because you didn't really smell things in dreams, you just thought you did, and it made you feel content, just like the real thing.

He was out of the shower and he was answering the door, and Trowa was there. Hi, Trowa said, and kissed him, wet-but-not and hot-but-not, tongue in his mouth and hand on his hip. He laughed, because it was funny. What do you reasonably think you can get away with? he asked, and Trowa grinned back at him. Are you drunk? Did you come drunk to a cop's house?

I had to see you, Trowa said.

Why?

We have something. I have something, for you. Do you have anything for me?

It made his chest feel funny. Magical.

Trowa was inside, then, and they were sitting on the couch together, opposite ends. He knew it was their first date, and knew he wasn't supposed to know that because in the dream it was the first time they were having their first date and it wasn't their first date yet, wouldn't be until years later when he wanted to be able to look back and point to a day and this was what he'd choose. And in the first date Trowa was drunk, or drunk enough, and kept saying come get a burger with me, come see a movie with me, come fuck around with me at least, and he laughed each time and finally answered do you even know why you want me?

You're not a liar, Trowa said. That's nice for a change.

They bickered about something, in the real first date, but in the dream he just decided to lean over and kiss Trowa back, finally. Trowa grabbed him by the neck and held him there, then put his hands up under his shirt, then down his trousers. They stretched out on the cushions, him on top of Trowa, grinding, Trowa's mouth on his, hot, hot all over. Hands on his prick, mouth on his prick. God, Trowa-- yes-- yes--

Then Une was there. Trowa, she said, and he looked over, Trowa looked over, to where she was standing by the door, coming toward them, that nutty little half-smile on her face. Room for me? And her hands went up to her blouse and unbuttoned all the little buttons. Her bra was black, no, red, her bra was red, and silk with lace on the edges framing her breasts, her breasts were bigger than before, big and heavy, in his palm, his palms cupping her breasts and her nipples going between his lips so he could suck on them. Trowa sucked on him and he sucked on her and she opened her mouth and moaned--

He woke up with a start. And with wood.

It was still dark out. He groped for his phone and smashed the key guard with his thumb; the sudden light made him squint. Three fucking a.m..

Wild fucking dream. He'd been doing that lately, dreaming that he was Duo. He couldn't figure out if it meant anything. And Une. Man, he hoped that was just because he'd been talking to her. He wasn't even sure if he really wanted to masturbate, not with that image lingering.

He gave it a shot. He grossed himself out, and got up to take a cold shower instead.


	6. Five

“Anyone lookin’ at that guy gonna know he a cop,” Eddie said.

“I know.” Duo fidgeted with his hair, trying to hide the microphone in his ear just a little more. “It’s the best we could do.”

“How come you can’t just do it yourself?” Eddie's old plastic bureau creaked when he leaned on it, but it held, however precariously. His date from before was no-where in evidence, now, but there was a little Latino hanging around in the kitchen, cooking quesadillas over a hot plate.

“Cops and shoes come in pairs.” It was as good as it was going to get. Duo put his back to the broken mirror. “We’re not here to make trouble. Not here to arrest anyone or even turn the lights up.”

“I’ll hold you to that.” The big black man peered at the light under the bathroom door. “You ain’t been on the scene in a long time, neither.”

It was his week for wallowing in the past. “People grow up,” he said.

Eddie’s laugh was as big and booming as the rest of him. “Man, I hope not,” he returned, white teeth gleaming in a grin. “Put me out of business real fast.”

“There’s always the newbies.”

“Gettin’ younger all the time.” Eddie reached for him, and Duo let him, let him pull the braid over his shoulder and finger the tuft at the bottom. “I knew I knew you. Been a long time, but you look the same, almost.” His fingers were dark sausages, but they were surprisingly light when they brushed over Duo’s neck. “Your buddy in there know?”

“I think he has a fair idea.” Would after tonight, anyway. There were more embarrassing things to do with a colleague who didn’t like you—probably. Duo was down to hoping they got what they needed fast enough to split before the real freaks came in after the dance clubs closed.

“What you give me to keep quiet about it?”

Duo caught Eddie’s hand away from his mouth and held it firmly. “You’re nice, Big,” he said, “but you’re not that nice.”

Crammed up close, that belly laugh was even louder. Eddie rubbed his neck with his free hand, his palm warm on Duo’s skin, pressing just a little too heavily. “You’re pretty funny, sweetness.”

The bathroom door opened, finally. Duo put space between him and Eddie. “You ready?” he said brusquely, before Marquez could say anything. Eddie’s eyes were burning into his back. “Let’s get going.”

Eddie lounged back into the wall. “You all just remember how cooperative I was,” he told them.

“A saint, Eddie.” Duo shoved his hands into his pockets.

They started in the downstairs. It was late enough that the casual group was headed out and the serious crowd was coming in to play. There was a small number at the bar, and a little assemblage gathered around a platform to watch some fireplay. None of the faces stood out to Duo. Not that he'd been looking at faces, ten years ago. The lights were dim on purpose. The music was loud for the same reason. It wasn't the kind of place you went to mix with the community.

There was a guy posing awkwardly in a full-out tuxedo. He at least made Marquez blend into the wallpaper. “You look like an Orthodox Jew,” Duo muttered at him.

“You said like clubbing clothes.”

“If this is what you wear dancing, I'm shocked you're still single.” The all-black, neck-high ensemble Marquez had put on was an eye-sore in a place where clothing tended toward optional, not Victorian. Marqueze was frowning, which didn't help.

“We should try the bar first,” he said. “Let me order.”

The hot tub was up and going. A couple were already in it, necking, hands under the water, their clothes draped over the edge. Marquez turned his head away quickly as the passed. Duo tried to ignore his misgivings. They weren’t going to get anything out of this.

“Two snakebites,” Duo told the bartender. Barboy, if that. Another one with a sweet baby face and a hand towel for underpants was walking on the bar itself, crouching in front of the customers who slipped dollar bills up between his legs. Duo took his turn when the boy glided by, bare feet delicately stepping between their glasses as they arrived. The kid was hard from all the touching, but up close he looked bored. Duo stuck a five under the string holding his towel on and tried not to wipe his hand after.

“You should’ve tried to ask about the vic,” Marquez said when the kid was gone.

“He was in diapers ten years ago.” Duo pushed one of the glasses into the other man’s hand and clinked his to it. “Alley oop.”

“We’re on duty.”

“This is our duty.” He took a large swallow of the snakebite, trying not to grimace at the sugary taste of the blackcurrant cordial. Marquez looked repulsed by the bright purple colour, and the smell didn’t charm him, either. His sip was much more moderate than Duo’s.

“Hi, hello.” Duo turned at the touch on his shoulder. It was an older guy, one who’d been at the bar when they arrived. Slight nasal lilt that might be European or even L3. A perfect smile that meant a lot of time at the dentist, and sparse hair bleached blond and carefully combed over the growing bald spot. Duo shook his hand and smiled back. “I’m Deeter,” the man introduced himself. “That one staring at the movie is Jan.”

“Duo,” he answered. “And Rico.” He ignored the jab he got in the back. No-one was going to remember their names. Deeter stretched past him to shake Marquez’s hand, too, and they got Jan’s attention long enough for another introduction. “Nice to meet you.”

“You two new in town?” Jan asked.

“New to the area,” Marquez said, easily enough. “Still kind of getting our bearings.”

It at least excused his very apparent uneasiness. Duo was glad he hadn’t tried to pretend otherwise.

“Oh, you’ll love San Fran,” Deeter told them. “Some of the best food in the world, and even dingy old places like this still have their glam. How’d you hear about the club?”

It was an opening. Duo sipped the snakebite, and said, “I saw it listed in a chatroom. We tried some other places first, though. I wasn’t sure about it, because of the newsprint.”

“Newsprint?” That got attention from a man on the other side of Jan, too.

“Well, yeah,” Duo said. “The murder here.”

“Oh, that.” Jan flapped a hand as if to blow away the memory. “That’s ancient history.”

“It was a gay bashing, though,” Marquez said. “Wasn’t it?”

“I guess we thought so at the time.” Deeter was distracted by the next pass of the bar boy, this time playing with a string of lights. “It was just a little kid, wasn’t it? Jan, you remember?”

“Poor little thing. He used to come here all the time. Horrible home situation,” he confided.

“You knew him?” Duo asked. He tried not to be excited about it, kept his voice casual.

“Well, I know the type. Daddy doesn’t want you to be such a pussy, some bully at school starts slamming you around.” Jan shrugged. “He was sweet, but too young, you know? I gave him money for a cab a few times. What was his name?”

“Kelly?”

The man on Jan’s other side was suddenly looking away. Duo noticed, and wondered if Marquez had. He nudged his foot back into Marquez’s shoe when the guy left the bar and went toward one of the film screens.

“Kelly, that sounds right.” Jan rubbed the bar boy’s ankle as he stopped over them. “Anyway, it was a real circus, when they found him dead, but they said it was probably just a jealous boyfriend, right? I mean, if it had really been a bashing, it would have been all kinds of ugly. This was more just sad. Wrong place, wrong time.”

“Honey,” Marquez said, and Duo nearly choked on his drink. “They’re starting a new movie. You want to check it out?”

“Oh, they play all the classics here,” Deeter said. “A lot of avant garde shit, too.” His eyes skipped over Marquez, then came back to Duo, lingering on his crotch. “Maybe we’ll join you.”

“Porn’s not really my thing. I think I’ll walk around a little.” Duo let the last of his drink slide down without tasting it, and stuck the empty glass on the counter in time to watch Jan stand up to kiss the bar boy. Marquez bent over Duo’s shoulder and murmured in his ear.

“I’ll take the loner,” he said. “Meet me back here in an hour.” He didn’t wait for Duo’s answer, but headed straight for the couches by the big screen, his walk all full of purpose. We’re screwed, Duo figured, and gave himself half the deadline before someone made Marquez for police and started some trouble.

“So what’re you into?” Deeter asked him. “Swing, kink, toys, bondage…”

“They got any equipment here?” Duo asked. They’d used to, anyway. And Eddie had said their suspect had been a dom, or had at least known where to find the subs. The guy running the fire show over in the corner was in full gear right up to a latex hood, and the cat-o’nine he was using didn’t look like light fare.

“There’s a couple of rooms in back. If you want the real intense stuff, you should try Tuesday nights. They have some workshops once in a while, too, if you check the boards.” Deeter smirked at him. “I bet your boyfriend makes a great master.”

Gag-worthy. “Thanks for the help,” Duo said. “I guess I'll see you later.”

“I'll be waiting.”

He'd forgot how you could navigate by sound, in the clubs. It wasn't like the baths, where there was a kind of quiet intensity, or the dance bars, where everything was frenetic and abandoned. Exilio was on the large side, and there was a lot to see in the warren of little rooms where some people sought privacy and others just needed a sturdy wall to work off of. The whole place was like waking to memories he honestly hadn't indulged in, in a century or two-- a whole slice of life that just hadn't been part of his daily mind. Hadn't been even when he'd been a regular in every club San Francisco had to offer. He'd always had that talent, that need to separate some things from the things that he allowed to matter. Work mattered. Even when it sucked. Work mattered, because work was where there was supposed to be purpose, work was where there was supposed to be justice. Law. Peace.

Hadn't been. Not in those days. No shit the colonies had suffered under Alliance, but he'd never really comprehended how Earth had, too. You almost couldn't see the signs anymore, how the city had been back when he'd first moved in with that edge-of-legal Preventers unit calling themselves First Eagle. First Eagle, that was a laugh, these days. They hadn't even numbered a hundred, and most of what they did number was made up of the same people Duo had dedicated his grand total of seventeen years toward wiping off the face of creation. Law, they'd carved out, or people like Relena Peacecraft had, and Duo had taken the gun he was handed and did what he could to enforce it, which amounted mostly to looking the other way on the big things and making a big thing out of petty criminals who trying to Robin Hood their way into a better life. So yes, he'd come here, places like here, bitter and probably depressed and probably verging on a mental break of some kind, and it had--

Not helped. But he wasn't sure, even now, that he could say he regretted it. It had happened, and you couldn't change what was; you couldn't always change what was going to be. Sometimes all you could do was just survive what made it into your personal bubble. Survival went easier when you could pretend you were concentrating on something else, like getting your ass plugged a few times a night. And there was something undeniably exciting about being in a building full of men, men who were unashamed about sex, revelling in sex.

A little shame. Shame, or something like it. He didn't regret who it had made him, in the end.

But it almost came as a surprise, to remember suddenly that Trowa was supposed to get back in the morning. This world didn't have Trowa Bartons in it. That, he could be glad about. Bad enough sometimes the things Trowa did know about him. Duo didn't want to find out if there was a stalker journal going back this far. God, he hoped not.

He'd made it to the fetish rooms, walking on autopilot. There were a few shows going on, and a few cameras were at avid attention, taping all of it. Duo had never been much into scenes, particularly anything that involved ropes or cuffs. He'd spent too much time in actual captivity for it to have any flavour of fun, and he knew too much about the real world to get off on simulated rape. Maybe it was better for Marquez to be back by the films. That was relatively benign. There was a young guy hanging from a sling and a gang going at him, in one corner, and that was the mildest of the activities in progress.

He'd been noticed. There was a pair of older men who looked like doms who were crusing him, but both of them were holding collars, and Duo didn't think he'd get far in conversation with them yelling at him to say “please, sir” after every question. The subs were a better chance, and there looked to be a few unoccupied hanging by the water hole. Duo aimed himself at them, and plunged into the lions' den.

The one he picked as likely had the look of a lifer. Store-bought club clothes, and too old to pretend to be fresh meat, which meant he'd been around a while. The kind of thin that came with extended drug use, a pale brunette with faded blue eyes. Duo pretended to walk past and then turn back, and said the first thing that popped into his head. “Hey, can I bum a ciggy?”

The sub brightened when Duo spoke, the sullen frown on his face evaporating into a coy smirk. He made space on his sofa and patted the cushion next to him. "Sure thing, darling, if you come sit with me," he simpered.

Duo obeyed. Even managed a tight smile, until a groan from the sling pulled his eyes that way. A big hairy guy was wrist-deep in the sling's occupant. There was a circle jerk starting amongst the spectators who all watched with hot eyes and open mouths.

"You don't look so relaxed, pretty," the sub said. He tapped Duo on the thigh with the leather crop in his hand. Duo caught the tress as it slipped away. It was smooth and cool between his fingers. "In the market for a new dom?”

“Just checking out the prospects,” Duo answered.

"Whatever he does for you, I can do better." His fingers tripped up the crop to Duo’s and stroked.

Someone climaxed. The noise was unmistakable. But the crowd had closed ranks and Duo couldn’t see who. He refocused on the sub. "You in here often?"

"Honey, I live here.” That got him a smile. Lip gloss and a pierced lip. Not bad-looking, but he was a little desperate, which probably meant he didn't have the money for drugs and was hoping for trade.

Or his instincts were entirely off. Next thing out of the guy's mouth was, “You haven't been around in a while, but I remember you."

That caught Duo’s full attention. But he had to shake his head. "Sorry,” he said truthfully, and gratefully. “I don't remember."

"Well, we were all pretty wasted most of the time. You're here now."

"Yeah." Duo forced an easy smile. "Duo." He held out his hand.

"Sheldon Rembrandt the Third, pretty. Shelly to you." He took Duo’s hand. His fingers slid up under Duo’s sleeve. Duo kept his smile in place with sheer willpower, and plunged head-first into conversation.

"I was kind of surprised this place was still around, but I guess it figures."

"The urge to merge is eternal. But you know that." His other hand went wandering into Duo’s lap. "You came back, didn't you?"

"Anyone else from the old time still around?"

"A few of them. Aren't I enough for you?"

"Just making small talk."

Not very well, apparently. The fingers searching for which pant leg Duo preferred didn’t slow down, but a hint of irony entered Shelly’s painted eyes. "You're not looking for a date, are you, honey?"

He took a gamble. "I was looking for someone. Kel. I remember he used to come here."

Shelly’s lips pursed. "Oh, Kel. There's a sad story.” Piercing in the tongue, too, playing between meth-worn teeth. “But I think you knew that already, didn’t you?"

There had been a time, not too long ago, when Duo had been paid to lie to people. He’d been decently good at it. He’d have given a lot if he could remember, just now, exactly how he’d done it.

If he couldn’t lie, he could be honest. Even perverts had a heart. "I just want to know what happened to him,” he said, no window dressing. “I didn't know he was dead until someone just told me last week."

"You knew Kel. He ran with a dangerous crowd. A boy comes to grief when he's not careful."

Success made him edgy. Duo took another risk; he put his arm on the back of the couch and let his fingers rest against Shelly’s bare neck, the edges of his hair. Shelly’s shiver was only a little overdone. "Ohh,” he said, “I do remember you."

Not the best news he’d ever heard. He’d spent years in therapy trying to reconcile-- this kind of thing. This place. And a dozen just like it, where he could probably still walk in today and meet a dozen men he’d screwed while he was drunk enough to forget about it. It was a miracle he didn't run into more like this.

Shelly leaned in to steal a nuzzle. Duo tried not to turn his head away, and got his ear bit for it. Words whispered out against his cheek. "Kel slept with the wrong man."

"Which man?"

He got an ankle between his feet, first, and then Shelly settled entirely into his lap, his arm around Duo’s neck. To anyone else, it would have looked like they were making out. The reasons why occupied all of Duo’s paranoia, and he got a little lost with the effort of marking all the exits and nailing a memory of where every man in the room was standing and who was watching and three conversations near enough to overhear which meant six or nine who might have heard Duo ask about Kel, and someone in that crowd was someone Shelly thought was dangerous enough to warrant a distraction--

“Doesn’t even matter if you’re a cop.”

All his scattered concentration pulled back to a single point. Shelly wasn’t as much of a noodle as he looked.

The hard-on rubbing Duo’s thigh was no noodle, either. "If I tell you, you'll owe me."

He freed his hands to grab the kid by the face. It was harder to get his eyes up and firm, but he held them when he had them. "I won't promise just to get a name out of you,” he said flatly. “I’m not that kind of cop, and I don’t think you’re really that kind of guy."

A kind of awkward, intense silence fell then, as they sized each other up. The tongue ring went in and out of pursed lips-- then Shelly looked away.

"I wasn't drinking that night,” the kid said. “I was mad at Kel; you know how it is. I was watching and stewing about how he spread it around. And he was using real heavy by then. He was getting the stuff from Eddie. And cruising that blond. I think he was making time with both of them."

Duo stroked his gel-stiffened hair, for whoever was watching them, and for reward, maybe. "Eddie claims he doesn't remember Kelby," he said softly.

"Eddie's a big fat liar." That was hard, and bitter. Duo believed it for that. No-one who didn’t have cause gave half a shit about anything, not in a place like this, not when you were on plenty of pharmaceutical help to forget anything that serious. His heart was beating faster, catching up on his excitement before he’d half allowed himself to even think about it in his own mind. Answers, real concrete answers, and if Shelly gave him a lead out of this Duo really would kiss him.

He almost couldn’t get it out of his mouth, he’d gone that dry-throated. “What happened to Kel?”

"That night, when Kel was crawling all over his blond, and Eddie didn't like it. They fought. The blond and Eddie."

"Who won?"

"Oh, please. Eddie owns the place. Who do you think won? He had Blondie banned from the club."

Owns, not owned. That shouldn’t have surprised Duo; even as it settled he thought he’d already known it, in the back of his mind. Eddie had a little too much influence for someone who only stayed on to chat with the old-timers.

"Could you describe the blond?” he asked. “Maybe to a forensic artist?"

"Well, I could, but you already know him. You were in here with him all the time.”

He was right into opening his mouth to protest that he sure didn’t remember any blonds and it didn’t mean a thing to him. When it did.

Zechs Merquise had been blond.

He went blank. It was shock, pure shock, and something like a horror that it had to be true.

It couldn’t have been Zechs. Zechs had been messed up, drugged up, but he hadn’t been a murderer. Duo was proof of that-- what you did as a soldier was nothing to do with what you did as a civilian or even as a Preventer, and Zechs hadn’t been interested in hurting--

Except he’d had a taste for rough, hadn’t he. Had a talent for it, too.

“Kel took off,” Shelly was saying, and Duo went zeroing in on his voice like he was coming out of a tunnel and could suddenly hear again. “He wasn't happy with either of them. Kel was a lot of things, but drama didn't get him hard. He didn't come around again. Week later, they found him in the alley. I liked Kel,” he mumbled. “It made me sad that he went that way."

“Blond,” Duo said hoarsely.

He felt a smile stretch the lips on his neck. "Kel and me, we used to call him Sexy Zexy."

Bad enough he’d messed up so much with Kel when he’d had a chance to help. All the pieces went falling together. He’d messed up with Kel, but it had waked him up to how fucked up he really was, how little it would take to wake up one day dead from drugs and booze. He’d wanted to change, wanted not to feel so lost, so he hadn’t gone back to any place he’d known because all the places he’d known were like this, wrong, from top to bottom.

Except because he hadn’t come back, there’d been no-one to come back for Kel. Except Zechs. Six months later Kel was dead, and three more after that, so was Zechs, and it took nine years for Duo to even find out what he’d started rolling.

“Honey? Pretty?” He’d been silent long enough for Shelly to be sitting up and staring at him with real concern. "Let me get you a drink,” Shelly said. “Or a glass of water?"

Duo rubbed his mouth. He meant to say something, but it got lost in his own head. He managed a nod to confirm he’d heard.

Shelly kissed him on the cheek. "You just stay right there and let the world turn right again. I'll go get you that drink."

There was a little black hole of him being gone and coming back with a bottle. Duo sipped when Shelly put it to his mouth, then up-ended it over his palm and splashed his face, the back of his neck. Shelly rubbed circles on his knee, meant to soothe, not come-on. Nice, for a guy who’d just thought he was getting a quick lay. If Duo had been him, in this place, he probably wouldn’t have come back.

Fuck it all.

"Thanks.” He was still dry-mouthed, but it sounded reasonably professional. He capped the water and offered it back. "You were really helpful, Shelly. Thank you."

"For what it's worth, it was actually kind of nice to see you again.” Shelly’s eyes went flicking toward the open corridor. Duo noted that, but not in time to fend off the big sloppy kiss that came swarming in a second later-- or the hand magically appearing in his pants. That, he thought dazedly, was talent. That zip always stuck on the down.

"Call me some time, pretty."

"Yeah," he said vaguely, before his brain re-engaged. "Wait. Take my card, okay?" He pulled one from his back pocket, and a small pen. "I’m putting my home phone on the back. If you're in trouble ever--"

Shelly kissed the card, leaving an impression of glitter gloss. He managed to touch himself as obviously as possible, putting it in what might have been a front pocket and might have just been the band of some dubious underwear. "Back rooms are still open."

He wasn’t remotely tempted, physical stimulation aside. It really would look less suspicious if they went there, after the show they’d made of making out on the couch. Of course, Marquez-- who was now watching like a hawk from the door. Of course. He could at least be useful and pitch a hissy or something, give Duo a reason to back down. Staring back at his fellow detective failed, somehow, to telepathically communicate that.

"Not this time." But he let himself bend down for a firm kiss, on the cheek. "I mean it,” he whispered. “You may be the clue that breaks the case. Don't stay in places like these."

"Places like these make life bearable on a good night, pretty." He snagged the pen away from Duo and held his hand open, scratching out a series of numbers on his palm. "Not before noon, please." He mouthed the numbers he wrote and balled Duo’s fingers to a fist. He laughed. "Now this gives a boy ideas."

No kidding. Duo felt a little green.

Greener, then, because of course Marquez chose _that_ moment to join them. The hissy was at least finally on the agenda; Marquez was as red in the face as Duo. Very abruptly, and not precisely asking, he said, "Can I talk to you?" and turned around without waiting for an affirmative.

If it wasn't going to suck so much once they were outside, Duo would have been relieved to be leaving.

As it was, the trek to the back alley was torturously quiet. Marquez marched along like a man fleeing a bad smell. Duo doubted he'd ever gone to even a straight club happily. The stick up his ass had the mark of God, not man or woman.

“How'd it go with the guy from the bar?” Duo asked, as they let out into the night air. Their sound van was three blocks up in the paid parking lot. He stripped the mike from under his hair and switched it off.

“Bust,” Marquez said shortly. He barely slowed, cutting a tight turn around the corner. “You get anywhere?”

Hard to tell if that was derogatory. Duo didn't try to parse it. “I got a lead.”

“Is that what you were doing? Interesting methods, huh. I'd never have thought of screwing a snitch to get a lead.”

“Oh, fuck off,” Duo retorted, stung. Marquez didn't so much as glance back, and Duo was stuck trailing after him like a naughty schoolboy caught with his-- with Shelly Rembrandt the Third's-- hand down his pants. “You never flirted if it would smooth the path?”

“Flirted. Maybe. Your fly is down.” It was. Duo zipped it furiously. Another turn and they were on a main street again, out with the night-crowd straggling between bars. Duo had to dodge a couple who weren't watching where they were going, but he was still plenty close enough to hear what Marquez aired next. “You know, I'll never understand what drives you people to places like this.”

Duo counted to ten. He counted to god-damn ten, and managed an actual breath at the end of it. “You want to know my lead, or you want to be a self-righteous prick a little longer?”

“I'm not,” Marquez said. “I honestly wanted to know. Never mind. Yeah. What'd you get from your snitch?”

"He was a friend of the vic's. He recalls Kelby and Big Eddie making time--" He caught himself. "They had a sexual relationship that got a little proprietary. Kelby stepped out with another guy, the blond Eddie mentioned. The one he threw out. Apparently it was hot and heavy.”

“Do we have ID on the blond?”

“Yeah.” Duo hesitated, sheer personal reluctance to believe it, still. “Zechs Merquise.”

Marquez actually stopped walking to look at him. “You have got to be fucking kidding.”

“No. And I can confirm it, before you ask.”

Marquez was shaking his head, violently. His hand made a cutting slash through the air, ending with an accusing point at Duo's chest. “Do not say another word. Zechs Merquise did not kill that kid.”

Oz. That was the first thing that popped into his head. There was no reason for Marquez to even remember that name, unless he was-- But Duo didn't know if he was, and the generous, the professional, thing to do would be to assume that it was at least possible to be politically savvy enough to not want that name repeated in the middle of the street, or in the middle of a case, especially if it was your case. "I didn't say he did. I said he might be the last person who say Kelby Gerganas alive."

"Did that kid in there name names?"

"I don't think he got the significance,” he said. “They had a cutesy nickname for him."

"I don't like it."

"Sorry for your loss, then. It-- fits."

"It doesn't make any sense though. And the guy's dead. Are we really going to trash a war hero on a maybe?"

Too much credit to the opposition. He felt a little colder. War hero. "Are we going to ignore a solid lead because you don't like it?"

"No. We're not going to ignore it. But we're keeping it quiet until we're sure."

"Did you expect me to go blabbing it on Channel 14 at five? I'm not a goddamn greenhorn. Stop impugning my abilities and focus on the fucking facts. Merquise frequented this club, we have three descriptive IDs on his presence here at the time of the murder, and both Eddie and Shelly recalled violent episodes. I call that a theory."

Marquez caught at that. "Three now? Who else?"

He hadn't even been conscious of that slip. He was getting too far deep on this, and he didn't do well swimming in over his head. He lifted his braid off his neck to cool his skin. "Me," he said shortly. "I can place him here."

Marquez winced. It wasn't angry, at least. Duo had expected the furious denial. Marquez just stood there rubbing his forehead like it was all too much to think about. "That's just beautiful."

Duo made an enormously reluctant gesture. "I'll recuse myself. From the case. I'm too involved."

"Like hell.”

“If we pursue Merquise then more is going to come out. I had a--” He couldn't call it a relationship, exactly. Affair still had a tinge of romance, and there had never been that, even in the moments where they'd managed to look up and remember there was a person attached to the dick. War heroes didn't pick up you at rehab, war heroes didn't take you to clubs so everyone could watch you screw. War heroes didn't overdose on coke and die in their bathrooms.

Trowa was going to kill him.

“What?” Marquez said impatiently. “You had a what? Damn, Maxwell, look, if you have an insight that can finally get this case solved--"

"I'm happy to offer my witness," he snapped. Immediately wished he hadn't. He wasn't happy. At all.

And that was when he realised. He really believed it. Zechs could have killed Kelby.

"You listen to me now.” Marquez slapped a palm flat to Duo's chest, hard enough to rock him on his heels, hard enough that Duo almost took a swing, and his face was flat and angry too. “Maybe you Preventers have the luxury of recusing yourself when you're involved. But this is real work, Maxwell. This is the law. We do our job even if it hurts, we do our job even if it's our own mother and Santa Maria robbing the banks. Too bad it's hard.”

“Get your hand off me,” Duo told him very quietly. He didn't add anything more. He waited, hands spread at his sides.

It only took four seconds. Marquez obeyed, with a flick of his eyes that said maybe he was sorry, or embarrassed, or maybe he'd just heard enough to worry about the follow-through.

“Look,” he repeated. “Realistically, Merquise has been gone a long time. So even if by some remote chance it was him, there's not going to be charges brought, no trial to go through. You're getting off easy.”

He was glad about that, then, because he felt raw enough to dread the idea. So it took him a minute to get it out of a dry throat. "I can do my job."

The air of tension slowly eased. "Good,” Marquez said, gruff in getting what he wanted, minus a little face, a little of his treasured cool. “Do the job. And we won't be getting people upset until we have something concrete. Okay?"

Shocking, that they were back to that. Duo bypassed it, to prove he could do curmudgeonly too. "Merquise was a Preventer. That's where we should start. I can set up contact with friends inside.” Another idea occurred, but he liked it even less than he liked going hat-in-hand to people who weren't his squad anymore. “The last place Merquise lived was on Mars with a woman he knew from OZ and Preventers. She's the logical next step. She's even in San Fran right now. I could get her to interview."

"Is this above or below board?" Marquez stared at him, then. "You know her too, don't you? You have history with all these people."

"I'm a fucking Gundam pilot," he snapped. "This is what it's like, all the time. You might as well get used to it."

"Not everyone gives a shit what you were."

That was fine to say. They were at their lot, anyway. The sound guys were tossing open the van's back door. They'd obviously heard everything and weren't in the business of meeting eyes. Too late, it occurred to Duo that he hadn't seen Marquez de-mike. Terrific.

"Just do the damned job, Maxwell,” Marquez said, and grabbed the handhold to jump up into the van. “Lose the personal baggage and do what you know how to do."

That pretty well illuminated the difference between them. Duo would always say “is” about being a Gundam pilot. Marquez said “was”. Being a Preventer, being a cop, that was all secondary. It was the job he did, not the man he was. Had decided he was going to be, when he was all of nine years old, before he'd ever even heard of Gundams.

Trowa had told him once that not everyone in humanity went around making big decisions all the time.

Duo wasn't sure he believed it.

 

**

 

Trowa was making a big decision.

He'd never been one to second guess, but given the memory lapses and hallucinations, he was feeling a little twitchy. Duo had told him once some crap about how admitting you had a problem was the first whatever, step or stair or he didn't remember because he hadn't been paying attention-- which was not his fault. Duo couldn't stand around in boxers and expect people to actually listen to what he was saying.

It sucked to wonder if you were losing your edge. Or got your partner killed. Osmond hadn't been much of a guy, but Une's reaction had been working at him. It wasn't just blame that fell on the guy left standing. Responsibility did, too. His instinct said Osmond had jumped the gun, but his instincts were compromised, and it was time to think about admitting that.

But maybe just think about it. This might have been taking it a little far.

It was his fourth city morgue. Maybe Prague had a high incidence of random murders and deaths, but it just seemed unusual that there were so freaking many John Does lying around.

“Mon nom est Rumina. Je suis d'Interpol.” He slid the fake ID across the counter, long enough for a cursory glance to take in the almost-official seal and photo, short enough to prevent a thorough examination. “Parlez-vous français? Anglais?”

It took some working to find someone who spoke French, much less English. He repeated his story about being with Interpol and flashed the badge a few more times. He ended up with a mousy little girl in her early twenties who looked likely to turn into a quivering young fool under the pressure of actually talking to a man. Or, judging from the way she stared at him over the rim of her glasses, she was a young Une clone.

“My name is Tomas Rumina,” he said. “I need to speak with someone who knows French or English. I don't speak Czech.”

She hunched in on herself under the safe layers of her overlarge lab coat. "I speak some English," she said haltingly. “What do you want here?”

“I'm looking for a John Doe, shooting victim, from yesterday. Might have been brought in yesterday afternoon or night. Maybe this morning.”

“His name is John Doe?”

That must not have translated. He stopped her from typing it onto the computer by brushing the edge of his ID over her wrist. “Unidentified male.” She was red, from being corrected, so he softened his approach. "Relax,” he said gently, and smiled for her, no teeth, all gentleman. “Unless you shot the man, you're safe. All I want is some information."

She returned his smile with a nervous spaz as she turned the screen toward him. "The man from the train station? Was he somebody important? It's all in the news."

"Let's just say he's a person of interest in a case we're working on."

The line worked in every language, he'd found. Thank God civies never seemed to know how useless Interpol really was.

His interpreter fetched the report out of the file cabinets in the back of the chilly little office. She spread the manilla folder out on the counter for him, for all the good it did. It could have been so much chicken scratch, for all he knew. "What questions?" she asked.

"First the obvious one. Was this man under the influence of some controlled substance? Any drug at all?"

The supervisor he'd first talked to was watching very obviously from the crack of another door. Trowa stared back.

"A medication for arthritis,” the girl said. “He had advanced degradation in his joints."

Interesting. "A narcotic?"

"Standard prescription, sir."

“Anything else? Anything that might have affected reaction time? Judgment?”

“Judgment?”

“Mental agility. Common sense.”

“It's only a preliminary autopsy, sir.”

"Thank you." He pulled the folder closer. “May I see this? The pictures?"

She let him have it. “You can't read it, though. No English?"

"A picture tells a thousand words, doesn't it?” A thousand and one, and one was all he needed. At least his memory had been straight on that account. “The cause of death?"

"The bullet wound, sir."

The forebrain said he'd never know why Osmond had jumped the queue and moved too soon. The hindbrain said no answer wasn't good enough, and in general his hindbrain spoke pretty loudly.

“Did he have personal items?”

“Yes. They came with the body. There hasn't been time to go through them yet. That's a different department.”

“Call them and have them bring it all to me. And make me a copy of this. Immediately.” He saw the protest starting, and cut her off with his most official voice. “Our offices will go over the details and save you the time of explaining them to me." Fresh reports made good insurance policies. He didn't think Une would trash him so clumsily, but it still paid to be ready, if the paperwork ever showed up with some ugly new edits.

Still the girl hesitated. "You need to sign for it."

Why people thought that was going to cover any mistakes, Trowa would never know. He'd left a hundred fake paper trails behind him, over the years, and none of them had ever come back to him. He smiled again. "Of course."

He waited almost a full hour for the personal effects, and when they arrived they came in a garbage back half-heartedly sealed with an official evidence form. Trowa ripped it open carelessly and dumped it end over.

A nice pocket watch. A pretty personal piece, but it didn't tell him anything. A little pill box, with what looked like generic aspirin. A penknife. With a nailfile. The guy sure didn't carry like a secret agent. There wasn't a gun in there, or any kind of weapon at all. Maybe the local Preventers had already cleaned him up.

Wallet. A couple of credit cards, some cash. A few grocery store coupons. Nothing. Fucking nothing.

Secret pocket. Someone had missed this.

ID.

Not Osmond. Miklos Kolinsky. And there was an address.

Thank God some people just didn't follow the rules.

 

**

 

Duo asked to meet him at their old bar.

They'd used to really like it, back in the day. They'd only ever gone to gay bars, back then, gay clubs-- neither of them were out at work and if you didn't have a third wheel, it wasn't worth the risk of being seen together. But Johnny had genuinely liked it. Going out like that, in a bubble of total privacy. Like they'd had a place where they could be totally themselves. He'd been so sure he knew who he was, too. Arrived. Solidly middle class, solidly cultured-- wine tastings on Sundays, dinner parties with the gay crowd and drinks after work with the squad, a job that made a difference, a home with a partner and a sense of security in all of it.

He actually stood in the door for a few minutes, to watch Duo sitting in their old booth, the one by the side window with the Tiffany lamp hanging over it, casting gem-toned shadows on his face.

At the first glance he wondered what he'd ever seen in Duo. But standing there looking at him, it came back. It always did. It wasn't that he was good-looking-- he was reasonably handsome, and there was some pride in having a man like that on your arm. But Duo had something harder to define, a kind of bright, animal grace. Even the way he sat his seat showed it-- the way he held his glass by the fingertips, balanced on the balls of his feet and not the heels, had an instinctive eye on everything around him. He drew the light to him.

Johnny drew in a big breath, and went in.

“Thanks for doing this,” Duo said, and stood to meet him. Johnny kissed his cheek, and took the open side of the booth.

"Hi,” he agreed. “You look great." He tossed his jacket down, and set the folder he held on the table between them. “I think that's what you wanted.”

Gratitude, expressed in the sudden upturn of lips and the loosening of the fist that lay on the table. Duo pulled the file to his side and flipped it open, immediately like that, and as quick as it had been easier between them, Johnny felt like he just disappeared. Duo was as good as gone when he was working.

“Glad I could help,” Johnny said into the silence. “It wasn't any trouble.”

“Thanks.” Duo glanced up. “They, uh, have the Copperhead you like on special until nine. You want?”

“Sure. I'll let you buy me a beer.”

Duo missed that. He was head-down again in the file, his eyelids flickering as he read. Johnny gestured for the waiter walking past, and ordered for both of them.

“You flag anywhere in the system?” Duo asked.

“Don't worry about me. I know how to run silent.” He managed to brush Duo's hand, reaching for the peanut bowl. Skin to skin, like a thousand memories that weren't really so far gone as he'd thought. “In a hurry to get home?”

“Not really.” Duo turned a page. He'd gotten to the photographs. He thumbed through them quickly. “Is this all there was? This is barely more than his service record.”

“Pretty much. Merquise knew how to lay low, too, apparently.” He'd read everything he'd pulled. Duo had played it cagey, on the phone. Duo was good at that. Johnny almost hadn't thought anything of it, content with the fact that Duo had called him and not, say, Heero Yuy. In fact he'd been more curious about that than he had about Zechs Merquise, until he was in the process of illicitly copying retired records. “You know, I didn't even know he was dead. I guess I always thought he was still on Mars, or retired, or something.” No response. “I don't think anyone had a clue what he did in his down time.”

Duo did. He was pretty sure of that. Like the fact that Duo's name was in that file, and they were in pictures together. Maybe not so unthinkable, but they definitely weren't sharing old war stories.

Not much wonder he hadn't asked Yuy to run it down for him. It was one thing to ask an ex to dig up your dirty past. It was another to ask a friend you still cared about liking you.

Their beers arrived. Johnny sipped at the foam, and moved a coaster nearer his elbow. "Rumours came up from time to time that Merquise wasn't always the nicest guy in the world, but nothing specific. Internal Affairs has a file. There's nothing concrete in it. Just an open watch file.”

“Could you pull that?”

“Already have. It's in the packet.”

Duo found it quickly. “Why were they watching him?” he muttered.

It wasn't meant for Johnny, but Johnny answered anyway. “He tested suspect for substances four years before he died. Only once, but the red flags stay up permanently when you're not on Narcotics rotation.”

“He was in rehab.” Duo chewed at his lip. “So much for anonymity.”

That was about as far as Johnny was interested in Zechs Merquise, especially if Duo wasn't going to come right out with anything resembling an explanation. “I'd like to buy you dinner. If you're not expected at home, that is.”

That, Duo heard. His head came up. He said, “Uh.”

“What? It's an innocent invitation. It's just nice to work together again.”

He watched Duo drag his finger up and down the thin edge of a page, risking a papercut. “I don't really know what answer I'm supposed to give to that.”

“You're supposed to say, 'Yeah, Johnny, dinner would be great'.”

“I know what I'm supposed to say. I don't know what the right answer is.”

“Don't you?”

“I'm grateful you did this for me. I'm still really fucking pissed at you for believing I was capable of murder. I guess the right answer has something to do with what's changed in three months?”

“One thing doesn't have to do with the other.”

“You have a spectacular talent for comparmentalisation,” Duo sniped. He tugged his beer near him, but didn't drink it. He was off balance, then. He wasn't as sure of himself as he wanted. Duo was a volatile guy. Baskets full of issues. You were lucky if he confined himself to one at a time.

Johnny had been smart enough to compare dates. He was all but certain that Duo had been in rehab the same time as Merquise. Rehab happened, if you made your career in Narc, and Johnny had done a stint of his own, once, for testing positive on a contact high; but rehab seemed to be the piece that was missing in explaining away some of Duo's stranger habits. The OCD cleanliness, the very insistent limitations on diet and drink. The reliance on therapists as confidants, on anonymity for safety. He hadn't even known Duo was a Gundam pilot until their captain had let it slip in conversation. They'd been together seven months by then, seven months, and the first thing Duo had done after he'd been exposed was go home and pack, in full expectation that Johnny would want him to.

Duo's mobile buzzed. He pulled it from his belt to check it, and tapped it uneasily on the table.

“Answer it,” Johnny sighed.

“Don't fucking tell me what to do.” Duo let it drop face-down. “I know who it is.”

“Barton?”

“A real estate agent. This friend of mine--” Duo sucked at his lower lip. “We're looking at buying a house. This agent has a place to show me, but it's tomorrow afternoon, and I don't really have the energy.”

“Get lover to do it. He always seems to have a lot of time off.”

“Christ, Johnny.”

Duo was a lot like a contact high. He had come onto a Narc case from Homicide, a tight little ball of angry energy wrapped in the stiffest uniform Johnny had ever seen. But he'd taken all the ribbing and teasing with good humour, and within an hour he'd had everyone laughing at his jokes. They'd done a stake-out, almost a month of very long hours. He'd known Duo was gay right off-- no question there. And they'd talked about everything under the sun, politics, religion, travel, family. They'd had everything in common, and a real spark, and he'd thought, I can see being with this person. It had been the first time he'd really felt that way. The first time, Duo had claimed, that he had, too.

They'd have been just fine if Duo had been all those things, and not a Gundam pilot, on top of it. It wasn't just about the war. He could have handled that. It was the whole world he wasn't invited to-- was deliberately excluded from. You couldn't be with someone who wouldn't let you in on his entire life. Like this stuff. He'd never known, would never have guessed. Duo would never have told him.

Or maybe you just had to try harder to listen. He'd had a lot of time to think about that. And they were older now. They knew more about the effort you had to make. The decisions you had to make, to make it work.

“Look,” he said. “I didn't come to apologise. You were right, that day at court, about what we owe each other now, which is mostly honesty. No game-playing, no fake-outs, no tests. Dinner is an honest offer. If you don't want me to make a move, I'll respect that. But if you're open to the idea, then, honestly, yes, I want to do that. So it's up to you. Thanks or no thanks.”

“No thanks,” Duo said immediately, brusque in his temper. But then the guilt went flying across his face. His fidgeting finally produced a scarlet little slice. He stuck his finger in his mouth. “Jesus, take a mile for an inch.”

“Do you blame me? Faint heart never won fair lady.”

“Fuck you.”

He assumed that was Duo's temper speaking, and let that go, too. “We could go to Antonio's. They still have the eggplant and pasta you love.”

“No.”

He considered fighting further. The instinct was there. The habit was there. But-- and there was always a but, with Duo Maxwell. He'd thought that was exciting, once.

Who knew. Maybe it still was.

He took out his wallet and left a couple of bills on the table to cover their drinks. "Call me sometime,” he said. “Even if it's only because you want another favour."

Duo was wearing his nervous shame face. "I'm sorry."

"You didn't do anything. It was nice to see you."

Duo finally reached for his beer. His palm smoothed over the file. "We're not ever really going to be friends, are we?"

Johnny eased back into his seat. “Is that even remotely possible?"

"I'd wish for it, yeah. There used to be enough for sex. Romance."

"We could have that again."

"No."

It was quietly offered. Genuine. Johnny drew and released a deep breath. "Because of Barton."

"Yeah." Duo sipped his beer. Then, "No. Because of me. I hated how it ended with us, but it was time. We weren't ever going to be forever."

Well.

"Seems like,” he said. “Whatever. Let me know if you need more help on this stuff with Merquise. I'll do my best.” He drained his drink, and let the glass thump hard on the way down. "But that's all you ever want from anybody. Isn't it?"

"Is it really so hard to give?" Duo said.

 

**

 

Quatre was on the phone. Quatre had been on the phone. For five continuous hours.

Wufei had opted to drive, rather than rely on the “secret service” car. They'd left the four bodyguards with the limo and added a little rental to their retinue. He'd signed for it, while Quatre wandered the parking garage, trailed by his black-suited guard, yammering on call after call. He hadn't been able to catch much sleep on the shuttle, either; Quatre had been awake for all of it. On the phone.

They were ten minutes out from Duo and Trowa's apartment when he reached boiling point. Quatre had fumbled the charger cord out of his hand luggage and was trying to plug it in while he talked. Wufei reached a hand out, grabbed the phone, and stuck it under his own visor. "Enough."

"Wha-- I was--" Quatre actually unhooked his safety belt to climb over the shift, completely oblivious to whether Wufei was trying to, perhaps, drive. Wufei batted him away. "That was Temple--"

"Do I need to put it somewhere you don't want to stick your hand? Take a breather. The world won't stop turning."

"You're awfully high-handed, Mister. At least let me text him."

"No."

Quatre actually pouted. He put his safety belt on again, and crossed his arms over his chest. "At least charge it so I can check my messages later."

"You can check them when we get to the hotel tonight. You're officially off the clock for the rest of the day. Is it that necessary to find distractions?"

"No." Still sullen. But he at least looked around, and noticed where they were. "We're almost there anyway. I hope Duo's home. He should be done with work by now, right?"

"Given that it's Saturday, one would think.” They were well past afternoon now. Evening, California time. If they were lucky they wouldn't interrupt Trowa and Duo doing something intimate. He knew how they usually spent their weekends. “Stop doing that leg-jiggle thing."

"I'm excited. I'm expressing my excitement. I also have to use the loo."

"Do you need to stop?" He was sure that Quatre wasn't so much excited as nervous. Nervous about seeing Trowa. He was glad of it, actually. It was a distraction from his own nerves. It was one thing to think about seeing Duo. It was another to be mere minutes from the actual event.

He hated unpredictability. Duo was unpredictability. Even in the best of times.

"I can wait,” Quatre said.

He glanced at the blond head now staring blankly out the windscreen. "It'll be fine."

"Of course it will." Quatre pointed. "That's the turn," said the man who had been a tourist every time he'd been in San Francisco, where Wufei had lived for eight years.

"No,” he corrected. “It's the next block."

"Oh."

It was only another moment. He turned onto their street and the rows of apartments, all mixed styles and interlaced with precious trees to cotton the otherwise dull city landscaping. He knew the way to Trowa's apartment by heart, though it was a strange feeling to be following the path now. His hands knew when to turn the wheel. He parked in the guest spot, and turned off the engine. "I'll wait out here."

"No, don't wait." Quatre twisted to grab the gift bag of champagne and toast he'd brought. "Oh, no, someone's going to have to tell them all where to park. They can't block off the entire street, it's just not right. This is rush hour."

Wufei checked out the rearview. Sion and Davi were already out of the limo with their road blockade signs. "I'll handle it,” he said. “Okay? Go see your friends."

Suddenly Quatre was sitting and staring at him head-on. Given that Quatre hadn't had the focus to look anyone in the face since take-off, it caught Wufei by surprise. “What?”

"I can wait for you. They're _our_ friends."

"Just go."

“Wufei.”

"Test the waters. If he's fine with it, I'll come in later."

"I'm not giving out choices, Wufei."

They'd been discovered. The noise of their arrival must have alerted Duo. He appeared at the front door. Wufei felt his chest tighten.

"Neither am I, this time." He flipped his phone open and dialed Sion's frequency. He didn't look at Quatre, at all. By the time he was asking Sion to keep a lower profile, Quatre was opening his door and vacating the vehicle.

He was trembling, a little. His hands. He flexed them until it stopped.

He hadn't really expected to win that contest. He hadn't really expected there to be a contest at all. He hadn't even known he would disobey until it was happening. But he had done. Disobeyed. For the first time, since they'd begun their strange dance of master and supplicant. He hadn't broken free, but the possibility was real, now. He'd found the limits of Quatre's authority, without even intending to look.

They were hugging, Quatre and Duo. Duo was visibly surprised to see them, which seemed odd. Quatre was talking. They both looked back at the car where Wufei sat.

Davi beeped him, to say that they'd established perimetre.

A man he didn't recognise came out of the apartment. No, he did know that man; from where? Then he caught a full view of the face and remembered. It was Duo's lawyer. Was something wrong? Something new going on? His thoughts raced with new worry. Fear. He had thought everything was over for Duo. Quatre would have told him, surely. Would certainly have told him if it was something to do with the trial, if there were new evidence--

Quatre came back to the car. Wufei rolled down the window for him. "Trowa's not here," Quatre said.

Odder still. "Where is he?"

"He's been gone for days on a job. Apparently including the other day when he called me."

There was no immediately obvious reason for that kind of miscommunication. Quatre had been very clear about the invitation, and Trowa had been quite urgent during the call. "He didn't mention that," Wufei noted cautiously.

"No. Certainly unusual." Quatre rubbed his nose. "And he didn't tell Duo he'd invited me. So Duo was on his way out. I've offered him a ride."

"Okay, fine.” He drew a breath, rearranging his mind to incorporate the new task. “Where are we dropping him?"

"I guess they've been house-hunting. He's going to look at an apartment uptown."

The lawyer was saying his good-byes, between staring at the bodyguards and at Quatre. There was no urgency in their exchange, at least. Duo smiled. The lawyer kissed his cheek, that surprised Wufei, and hugged him as well. They waved as the lawyer walked to his car, parked in the visitor's area further up the road. He slowed when Mohammed split off from the watch to intercept.

"Get someone to let Addison through. He's hardly going to assassinate me when my back is turned. Will it make you feel too much like a driver if Duo and I sit in back?"

"Quatre, I really couldn't care less. Someone's got to drive and you came a long way to see him." He sent the order by text, and watched long enough to be sure Mohammed received it. "Would you please take off the kid gloves? I work for you."

He didn't raise eyes to see if Quatre were upset. Or angry. Or disappointed. He didn't want to know.

So he couldn't have blamed Duo for doing the same thing, coming to the car. But Duo was a braver man. Duo looked, for a long minute. There was nothing to read on his face-- there was too much to read, really. Too much that defied easy understanding.

He discovered he'd stopped breathing, when Duo's gaze finally left his face. The doors opened behind him, and Quatre and Duo got in.

“Where to,” he said, and started the engine.


	7. Six

Quatre twitched at the limp plastic blinds over the window. “Well, you'd have to replace these, obviously.”

“There's this place downtown where they sell these canvas things you can get dyed to match your walls. I'm leaning toward that instead of blinds. Or maybe inside shutters. Those are cute.”

“A little kitschy, don't you think?” Quatre faced him. He said, "We should talk about Wufei."

Duo had extreme reservations on the matter. He did partial duty to paying attention to the apartment, giving the vents in the floor cursory inspection.

"Have you spoken to him?" Quatre pressed.

"You told me not to speak to him. And then you bring him to my door."

"Both of you needed a cooling-off. But months have gone by. Isn't it time?”

Quatre's pale eyes kept a lock on his. Quatre was annoyed, but the frustration came out of slamming his head against the brick walls in his life, and Duo was probably Wall Number One at the moment. Small comfort that Wufei was in contention for the title.

"No,” he answered then. “What do you think of the closets?"

Quatre followed him into the master bedroom walk-in, standing in the door with his hands in his pockets as Duo jiggled the wooden shelves. "I'm not letting this go, Duo. It's too important."

"Is that why you're here? Did Trowa even really call you?"

Quatre coloured. Duo ignored it. "No,” Quatre overrode him. “Not at all. And don't shift this to Trowa."

"All that to the side, we both know you wouldn't be here for me or for Wufei if Trowa hadn't rung you up and asked you to come."

He earned himself a short, hurt silence for that. "That's unfair, Duo."

But he was in a brutal sort of mood, between trying to be nice and pleasant to first Johnny and then Marc and Marc's ex who was all kinds of star-struck to have the Foreign Minister touring one of his apartments, sandwiching in worry about Trowa between working on the case and his newfound uncertainty over Zechs Merquise. He really didn't enjoy thinking about Zechs. He was scared about it, about putting this yoke on a man most people didn't even know was dead. Zechs hadn't been a good man, but he'd been an important one, quite probably a crazy one, but dying the way he had was a tragedy for anyone and Duo didn't really have the room inside of him to be thinking and feeling about Zechs' tragedy and that teenaged dead child's tragedy and now Wufei's ongoing tragedy on top of it.

"No shit,” he said, and didn't even regret it until it left his lips. “I could use a friend once in a while."

"I haven't got a phone call from you either. In fact, Trowa is the only one who calls."

Called and invited Quatre to visits when Trowa was out of the damn country. And damn if it hadn't immediately occured to him why that might be. "I'm not ready to deal with Wufei. I'm not ready. I think maybe three months is within the acceptable time-frame for not being ready to deal with the man who turned out to be--"

He didn't finish it. Quatre did. "A liar."

Hitting the nail on the head. It came down to that being the worst of it, really.

But what did you say to someone who lied? What made one liar different from another liar? He lived with Trowa's lies. Not because he had to, because he could have left. Had left, once. Could have left again, and probably after the initial anger Trowa wouldn't even have blamed him. He could find himself a man who didn't challenge him. Friends who didn't used to pilot death machines, who didn't know that he had.

Or not. Everyone knew who he was, now. He wasn't going to be normal ever again.

He wasn't adapted for this kind of life. A secret fantasy of his was that he hadn't really been destined ever to make it out of the war, though back then he'd never so much as conceived of the thought that he'd die. Well, almost never. But he couldn't start second-guessing his entire existence, not at almost thirty years old, at the start of his second career, the start of his second major relationship with the only man he was ever going to love so much he could scream and cry in the same syllable.

He'd been doing all right, the year he and Trowa were separated. Functioning, even occasionally enjoying himself, although it seemed like no-one was talking about anything, and that included Quatre Raberba Winner in his glorious majesty, making the fast-track on the political trail and changing lives, and that included the man who was guarding the car down on the street, who had been on a private crusade that had just somehow slipped everyone's notice. No, he didn't like being surprised by Wufei at the door. He'd been doing all right when none of it was out in the open-- no, not quite the whole picture. He'd been doing all right with the forgiving and forgetting when it wasn't right in front of his face. When Wufei was safe away on L4 being taken care of by someone else for a while.

Probably an important thought, that. Probably said something important about himself. He had the occasional epiphany without the aid of a therapist, whatever Trowa thought. It just seemed like it had been a long time since any of them were good.

So what did he have to say to Wufei anyway? Nothing. Not a damn thing occurred. He'd worked through the betrayal, mostly, he'd worked through the denial in the first ten seconds after seeing that freshly dead body Wufei had made in Rene Vasquez's apartment. Worked through the guilt when Wufei had said some particularly shitty things the day of the trial, making like it was all Duo's fault for forcing his help on someone unwilling, someone set on throwing their life away.

Why were there so many people who seemed to want to do that? Who made a very competent go of trying. Himself, top of the list, right up to living with a man who was a functional alcoholic when Duo had almost tanked at age nineteen being a very unfunctional one. But add in Kelby Gerganas, who at fourteen hadn't known how bad bad could get; add in Zechs Merquise, who maybe hadn't really understood it either. Add in Chang Wufei, who had no damn reason, no god-damn reason to do it, no go-damn--

And Quatre, who was trying to take on Duo's usual job, in addition to living a very fine life Duo wished him to go on living uninterrupted by the greater darkness.

Worth a few deep breaths. He took them, head-clearing lung-filling breaths, and asked, "How big do you think this bedroom is? Twelve by nine?"

"You can shut me out, but you can't shut this out of your own heart.” As reasonable as assuming hearts had doors. “Eventually you'll have to deal with this. And not for Wufei, but for yourself."

Two conversations ago. Two lifetimes ago. "And I'm telling you I've got bigger shit to deal with than you, me, or Wufei."

"Fine."

"I think the room is twelve by ten."

"It's fourteen by twelve, Duo. The paint color is deceiving you."

Quatre made a strategic exit with a not-as-strategic sigh. Duo ground his teeth against an equally obnoxioius retort. They both knew Duo was blowing him off, and it was fair, if markedly immature, to go out on a snide note. He shouldn't have said that bit about Trowa. True or not, some things shouldn't be said and it went against his own rule of leaving a very wide berth around anything having to do with Trowa and Quatre. No shit Quatre was going to come running the moment Trowa evidenced anything that looked like need. Duo didn't begrudge it. Much. There was something sweet and important and even innocent about first love, and he didn't begrudge it for them, because it had made them better men to go through it, even if it had been doomed.

God, how did he just stand there and pass judgment on anyone? It wasn't like he and Trowa had a magical guarrantee. They had good intention, they had something that was awfully close to a committment. But they had no more guarrantees than anyone alive and vulnerable and human had, and quite a lot more room for a stray gunshot than most had, and it was damn stupid to count on something blindly like that, to have--

Faith.

Faith was for people who enough security in their lives that it came naturally, or for people who had it so bad they needed the promise of a better day in the hereafter. Duo wasn't either, had never been all powerful or all powerless, and that pretty much left him with determining his own fate, and extending just enough trust to the people in his life to exercise like care.

“Sorry,” Duo said, turning to look.

Quatre stood by the window, square in front of it where he had a perfect view of all the world laid out on the hills. It was a good view, Duo admitted, even with a sheen of the Bay silvering the horizon edge, the Transamerica Pyramid from the Washington Street side. Better view than what they had now.

Quatre said, "He loves you, Duo."

"I don't doubt any of you do. And I love all of you. Even when we're all being stupid and selfish and sucky."

"Is that what I'm doing?"

He gave it up to God with a smile. "I think it's what I am."

Quatre wasn't ready to let it go yet. He said, "I think you're being self-protective to the point of shutting the rest of us out."

"I'm not ready. And Trowa's not either. We-- things are-- we needed the time to ourselves, but there's still stuff to deal with."

Quatre pounced on that, turning on him with a little whirl of the heel, a glimmer of triumph lifting his chin. "When Trowa rang me,” he repeated. “I thought he was calling me from home. Guess not, huh?"

As easy as that the advantage went swinging away from Duo and right into the lap of the man born to be a politician. Duo even found himself telling the truth, despite an absolute determination to run a little feint-and-distract. "He's been out on the job for a few days," he said, and finally found the strength to flee up to the third-floor kitchenette.

Quatre followed patiently. "You don't have to confide in me,” he told Duo, ducking the wild swing of a overhead cabinet door. “But I hope you know that you can. And that I'd help you any way you asked."

"He's..." He occupied himself opening drawers and refrigerators. "We had a little car crash after dinner one night. He had a flashback, I think. Or a hallucination or something."

"It wasn't the only time, was it?"

“Don't use that mind-tricks thing on me. I don't like when you do that."

Quatre relented. His eyes fell to his shoes. It might have been Duo's imagination, and if some wild drunken theories were correct it might not have been, but it felt like a pressure at the back of his head vanished the moment Quatre was looking elsewhere. "I'm sorry,” Quatre was saying, sincere as a mountain snowfall. “I didn't mean to be manipulative. I only meant I don't think he was in the here and now when he called me."

No, Duo very much suspected he hadn't been. A man could go mad trying not to think about it. But out went his gut, spilling all over the bloody place, because Quatre looked at him with those big dewy eyes and asked him to share. "I don't even know where he is."

"You have no way of tracking him?"

“Short of asking--" He'd very nearly let it slip the rest of the way out, Une's name and Trowa's real mission title, and horror at himself clamped him up tight. No-one outside of his lawyers and Duo himself knew Trowa's whole story. "Around. I've never tried to track him before."

"I always hated that aspect of his job. He's so secretive. It can't be safe."

"Apparently not."

"How do you stand it?"

Which, really, was kind of a silly thing to ask, coming from a man who was trailing six full-time body guards just to go apartment hunting in an admittedly more decent part of town than Duo currently occupied. And it took on a shade of the absurd when you added in the fact that there was no weapon invented that either he or Duo couldn't have shot pitch-perfect on first meeting, out of practise or not. Given that Trowa qualified as the one man amongst them who was in practise, it was actually an outright ridiculous little comment.

The kind you made to pacify a friend with a ridiculous temper. Duo had to force himself to unclench. He said, "It's actually vindicating to know I was right when I spent years bitching about it."

"Being right only takes you so far."

"Give me a minute or two to enjoy it."

Quatre met his frown, and looked away again. "I don't suppose he's willing to get help."

"Oh, I'm sure he's got a shrink on retainer. After all, Trowa's always eager to talk to people about his troubles, open himself to others. Oh, wait, I have him confused with someone."

"Duo." Quatre chided him like a recalcitrant schoolboy, folding his arms sternly over his chest. "I know it's not in character, but if anything Trowa has a sense of self-preservation."

"Yeah. That he does."

"Ought I talk to him?"

"No. He'd kill me, Quat. I'd deserve it." He shut the final drawer on the conversation, as such, and made an effort to turn back to a safe topic. "So what do you think of this place?"

"It's a wonderful investment. Great schools in the area. The clubhouse and pool are gorgeous and Anwar-Morris is the builder. They've got a good reputation for quality. You're in a liberal voting district."

"If we were a straight couple with kids, any of that would matter."

"It should matter to any couple, Duo. Well, what are you looking for in an apartment?”

Trees. This place had a few decorating the perimetre of the parking garage. A porch. This had a strip of green on the second-storey balcony, like a lot of the multi-level apartments in San Francisco, but it wasn't the same as a lawn or a garden. There were shitloads of stairs here, too, and without pictures of your wedding and your kids stairwells didn't contribute much to a home, in his experience. The downstairs kitchen was more cramped than the little kitchenette up here on the third floor. Who needed a kitchenette on the third floor? There were nice enough touches, sure. He liked this room, actually. It had skylights, he loved those, and the windows up here were diamonds, unlike the square ones below. Maybe it had been a studio, or a spare room to rent to a student or something. Sloping ceilings, space for some book cases, room for a futon or a big rug to sit on or something. He could picture sleeping in this room-- or sleeping around in it with Trowa, anyway. It had that kind of wistful romance.

Which of course meant Trowa wouldn't go anywhere near it.

“Duo, look. Straight over the Bay there. I forgot you could see them from here.”

Quatre had sharp eyes. Duo followed his finger out over that beautiful city view from the little diamond window over the second-storey balcony. They were there all right, bright stars amid the fainter ghostlights. The L3 cluster, and there hovering higher in the evening sky and glowing defiantly in reflected sunlight, L2.

Yeah. There they were, all right. It might well always make his heart seize like this.

Quatre had gone quiet. They had both gone quiet, but Quatre was looking at Duo instead of the colonies up there in the Space over their heads, all that great distance away, and Quatre was the one who found his voice first. He said, "Maybe you should keep looking."

Duo had to clear his throat to get words out of it, and it still sounded like he was talking out of his stomach. "Speaking as someone who's had to actually look for a place to live several times, it's not that much fun."

Quatre regarded him patiently. "I have people who can do the preliminary leg work. If you like."

"Don't go out of your way. Seriously. It's okay.” He shrugged off all the offers Quatre was capable of and ready to make. “And you know how Trowa is. He'll leap all over you about managing us."

"I know how Trowa is. You're not happy."

"It's been a long day and Wufei is sitting in your car outside."

"Let's get you home."

"Yeah. You think your burly men out there would eat Thai? We could order in."

"I can take care of them, Duo."

"You going to a hotel tonight? I don't know what they allow you to do."

Quatre leant on the windowsill. "I've booked a room at the Prince Edward," he said. “I think that's what Wufei said.”

"Swanky. Maybe I should come stay with you."

Quatre broke out the grin most people saved for getting a puppy on Christmas. "Oh, I'd love that! Could you?"

Duo had to grin, himself. He'd been joking, but leave it to Quatre not to register tone or context or plausibility. It was part of his charm. "I guess it's not like anyone's waiting for me at home,” he admitted. Then just took the plunge. He'd never liked being catty with Quatre, anyway. “Yeah. I can even sleep in a little. It's closer to downtown."

"I can have my driver take you into work."

"You've seriously forgotten what it's like to be a regular Joe, haven't you."

Twice in two minutes Quatre missed the joke by a country mile. He looked thoughtful, considering that far more deeply than it warranted. "I don't know if I ever was."

"You were. We beat the rich boy out of you, once." He slung his arm about Quatre's shoulder. Human contact, that was nice once in a while, wasn't it? Especially with someone who could take you over his knee one minute and spoon-feed you chicken soup the next. "Remember going to the beach that one summer? I mean the fake beach on L1."

Quatre provided the exaggerated wince that meant he was finally going along with the humour. "Yeah, I guess I do."

"I made you shop at a thrift store. With cash."

"Those clothes were so filthy."

"They wash them. And you looked good in jeans. We went to the beach and those hot babes in the thong suits were cruising you."

Quatre was still sceptical over that one. Then again, he still probably didn't know what 'cruising' meant.

"That was a good day,” Duo said. “You and me."

"We should do it more often."

"You still dream big."

"Always." Quatre squeezed him tentatively about the waist. "Shall we get of here?"

"Yeah." He sneaked a final glance at that window with its loaded little view, and resolutely put his back to it. They clattered down the stairs arm-in-arm like the teenagers they hadn't been in, well, ever, really, and a strange sense of euphoria began creeping over him. They might really pull it off. Really, they might manage it. Boy's night out, and maybe he could convince Quatre to break out the feather pillows and take a few whacks at each other, for old times' sake. He could use a night like that, and God knew there wouldn't be any coming once the thing with Relena went permanent. She was perfectly all right for a girl, but girls tended to want things like no chaos in their houses, and right now Duo wanted nothing more than a little light-hearted chaos to roll around in.

"You ever play basketball? There's a lot by Prince Edwards."

"Basketball? Not since grade school."

"Good,” Duo said, grinning madly. “I'll cream you."

Quatre was right there with a high-brow, "Don't get cocky, buddy," but then he was grinning too. "I play racquetball three times a week."

"Yeah, with Sion, who is paid to protect you."

"No, really, with Wufei. And you know how he is."

"Yeah, well, basketball is not a game of skill and strategy. It's a game of sweat and masterful insults and a lot of chest-thumping, so I think my chances are pretty good."

“You're on, Maxwell.”

 

**

 

Given his options, Trowa chose the one least likely to get him in trouble. He slipped in the building with the pizza guy and walked down a lantern-lit lobby. There was new art on the walls, truly ugly abstracts in pastels that would have made for a particularly dreary dentistry, and didn't do any favours for a place that was supposedly livable. The paint was on the grey side of white and created long shadows under his feet, abruptly abbreviated when he halted at the door with the Complex Super sign.

When Heero answered his knock, Trowa said, "I broke the cardinal rule on my last job." And then there were just too many damn things wrong with the picture, so he started to actually laugh. "It all went to shit, and in the aftermath, I went to my dead partner's house. How fucked up is that?"

And Heero stood staring at him for a long time, as startled as Heero ever looked, which meant eyes a fraction wider than was perhaps normal and no other clues in an otherwise impassive face. Sometimes Trowa forgot that about Heero, until he was standing in front of him. Once when Duo had been angry he'd called Heero a robot. That had more than a grain of truth to it. Heero didn't have depths to his surface. It was all one level, almost a god-like absence of the need to feel. And though it had been a very long time since Trowa had been in a place this low, suddenly he was fifteen and desperately wishing he could be just that safe from his own insides.

Then Heero reached for something on his side of the door. A coat. He put his arms into it, one smooth mechanical interaction of muscle after the other, buttoned it to his collar. "Come get a drink with me,” he said. “It won't be so bad then."

 

**

 

Dorothy wrapped up her lengthy and prominently one-sided conversation with a vexed, "You haven't heard a thing I've said since you saw that black dress."

Relena admitted as much as she turned the dress again in her arms to examine the tailoring at the waist. "I've heard you. I've heard you three or four different times. Is this the one about submarine nuclear attack? Or the one about how carpet bombing Dresden was the most successful campaign in history?"

"You're no fun at all when you get up on your high horse. It was the one about the breakdown in communications between the three colonial mining unions. I'll never appreciate why there need be more than one."

"You'll never appreciate why there need to be unions, dear." She gave the dress over to the personal shopper trailing them and directed herself at a dark blue organza with a daring swoop-cut that would bare almost the entire back. She held it up to Dorothy, first, but couldn't resist turning to the nearest of the standing mirrors to try it against her own figure.

"Oh, please,” Dorothy interrupted. “That is neither your style nor colour."

Fair if rude. It was a good match with her friend, though, especially with the feathery curls Dorothy wore these days. Her already trim hips would all but disappear in the sleek skirt, but it would show off her slender shoulders to perfect advantage. "For you, then. You've got that hint of strawberry in your hair. It would be gorgeous on you, and certainly far more suitable than your customary mourning garb. Isn't it time to give it up?"

Dorothy's smoky eyelids went wide under pale arched brows. "I wasn't aware there was a timetable for these things," she replied tartly.

Relena let that pass with just a touch to Dorothy's cheek, and gave the organza to their shopper to send to the dressing lounge. "At least try it on. You'll be smashing, and you know you can't resist that."

"I detest shopping. Why do we always go shopping?"

The complaint was without bite. It was, in fact, quite warm. Dorothy knew the answer as well as Relena did. They had both been treasured daughters, but as teens they'd been robbed of the carefree maturation into womanhood that many of their school fellows had enjoyed. There had been no experiments with their mothers' rouge and lipstick, no giggling trips to the salon to have their nails buffed and varnished. They had both lost beloved father figures, been making decisions that ended lives, when other girls their age had been choosing nothing more dire than which dress to wear for promenades and debuts. Relena had been proclaimed a Queen and been made a political refugee in the same year she might have had her first kiss, instead. Dorothy had lost a costly rebellion and nearly lost her own life at Relena's brother's side.

Dorothy was a sober person these days, very much the image of the CEO of Winner Enterprise's Earth-side holdings. It had certainly been a surprise appointment, given the history between Quatre and Dorothy. Relena had thought it compassionate, at the time. Now she thought it shrewd. Dorothy had been scrupulously proper as the public face of WEI, but more than that, and despite her complaints to the contrary, she'd been the lynchpin in relations with the unions. WEI rated in the top five industry ranking for employee satisfaction, and it came at no detriment to productivity and expansion. Quatre had given her an opportunity to prove herself useful-- not just to the world, but to herself. She would never be a pacifist, and she might never be even the humanist that Quatre was, but Quatre had led her back to the shred of humanity she'd nearly forgotten, and she would be ruthlessly loyal to him until the day she died. If it left her little time for joy, then Relena made a point of trying to keep their visits light.

Which was why she mentioned none of that. Instead, truthfully enough, she answered, "I see you three times a year at most, and I don't like to spend that time watching you do paperwork."

"Oh, is that what it is." Dorothy took the shimmery white gown one of the assistants brought to her, but made a face as soon as it was in her hands and tossed it back. "Are we shopping for your honeymoon wardrobe, perhaps?"

Dorothy had at least waited for a moment of relative privacy to make that sally. Relena glanced about to be sure, but they'd been left in a momentary bubble of peace as the owner assembled an array of models in silk lingerie for them. "I'm ready for a marriage,” she said softly. “Quatre will make a good husband. There's things attendant on it I don't like, but nothing comes free of charge, does it?"

"He's been finished with Barton for a long time. In any way that you'd find threatening, anyway."

That most certainly did not invite eavesdropping. Relena gave her companion a dark look as they took their seats on the low divan before the runway where their models would display the clothes they'd chosen. A small champagne fountain yielded two gold-rimmed goblets for them, served by a smiling young girl with an attractive dark bob. Relena watched her go, thoughtful suddenly. "It's nothing to do with that," she admitted.

Dorothy crossed her long legs and gestured for the show to begin. A thin woman floated from behind the diaphanous curtains, strutting slowly into a turn in her Basque ivory corset. "What then?" Dorothy asked. “He's met your mother. You've met the brood of harpies he calls his relations. You don't want to live on L4? You want him to convert to Catholicism first?”

"Quatre has political ambitions. And there are a large number of people who'd like him to fulfil them as soon as possible."

"Ah.” Dorothy speared her with sharp eyes as a second model emerged with a barely visible chemise of lace. Both Dorothy and Relena waved her on immediately. “You don't approve ambition?"

"I haven't decided."

"Would you sway him from his destiny?"

"You and destiny." She waved off as well the La Perla bustier that followed. "Is politics ever a destiny?"

"For Treize it was. As it is for Quatre."

Oh, that did not please her. "Quatre is not Treize," she whispered tightly, concealing her the movement of her mouth behind the rim of her champagne flute. Dorothy made no such effort, but her lips never moved from their smile as she spoke.

"They're more similar than you'd guess,” she said. "The Opium corset is divine. Imagine him unlacing you in the bridal bed. Oh, don't sulk. It's not as bad a quality as you seem to think."

"We'll have to continue to disagree on that point."

Dorothy laughed her rich laugh. "You know I'm right. I think that's exactly why you hate the idea of Quatre in office."

"Quatre will never be the kind of man Treize was. Quatre's never evidenced the top-heavy ego, for one thing. And it never would have occurred to him to run for President if Temple Mayfield hadn't been dripping honey in his ear for years. And he certainly hasn't agreed yet."

Raspberry chiffon replaced the creamy silks. Once again, Dorothy took charge of the selection, approving a thigh-length slip with a ruffled edge and a camisole and panty set that flounced in the thin breeze created by hidden fans. "He will,” Dorothy answered. “Perhaps even if you say you object."

Relena was agitated. It was an effort to keep her expression smooth, to occupy herself with the champagne, to smile at the owner who watched anxiously from the side. "I didn't invite you along so you could sharpen your tongue on me," she murmured.

“Oh, forgive me, indeed. Stop looking at that girl. You're too old for a bob.”

They were on to the gowns. Her first selection, a wine-red sheath with beaded columns at the breast, moved too stiffly on the girl who wore it, and Relena sent it off with a flick of her finger. She said, "If that's the life he chooses to live, I'll live it with him. And then he'll owe me the same favour."

"Oh?" Dorothy called for a refill of their flutes. Her full lips were curved in an almost catty smile. "That sounds positively threatening. You must tell me now."

"There are things that one can do once one had had a position of power.” The young lady dripped bubbly into their glasses and retreated to her corner. The blue organza made its appearance, flowed like water about the model's knees, the soft gather at the shoulders revealing a hint of cleavage and the long white slope of spine to nearly the top of the buttocks. Dorothy would indeed turn heads in that dress. She nodded to the owner, who sent the model to stand with the other girls they'd approved. “I've done what I could with the credit I earned from the wars and from serving as Vice Foreign Minister. If Quatre does decide to run for the Presidency, we both know he'll win. And whether he serves one term or three, when he's done, we'll have the political capital to effect more, and more effective, change than any President ever could. We can open foundations, we can raise funds, we can call in more favours than any fifty senators could pocket. That's a goal I can dream of."

"A goal Quatre would happily embrace." The black dress she'd liked so looked almost aubergine under the lights, but the strapless corset bust would flatter her curves as a slimmer woman couldn't hope. It fastened with buttons, not a zip, with a slight gather at the hips to emphasise the waist, and the scarf-like drape of the single shoulder was elegant without competing with the fish-tail train. Relena approved it, and so did Dorothy, grudgingly inclining her head to Relena's taste. "I'm a little disappointed, though,” Dorothy added then. “That it wasn't something more nefarious, I mean. How many children will you have?"

"I think two is reasonable."

"Reasonable." Dorothy sipped her champagne and set it aside to search the tray of truffles left for them. "That word perfectly describes you both."

She knew. There were moments where she truly wished she could be unreasonable, but those days were long past her, and it was time to be-- sensible. Rational.

She said, "If there is such a thing as destiny, this is what it is."

Dorothy sighed, very quietly. "Both of you need to be reminded what passion feels like."

Shoes, next. Relena chose a truffle for herself, using it as a prop as she had used the glass to hide her lips. "We... got something of a start on that."

Dorothy's head whipped around. "You did the deed?" she whispered sharply.

Satin sandals passed them by, and fan-back stilettos. "When he gave me the ring."

"And you didn't call me with the details?"

"There hasn't been time." She risked a transition between the models to pull the golden chain she wore from under her scarf, to show Dorothy Quatre's ring. She tucked it away when the boutique owner strained her head to see.

"My goodness,” Dorothy observed. “So was it all you hoped?"

"It was-- interesting." She knew Dorothy would tease and press her, so she quickly moved on. "In all honesty I'm shocked he agreed."

"Please tell me he didn't fail to get it up for you."

"Of course that's not what I mean!" None of the season's new shoes met her approval, and she gestured the owner to move on to the jewelery. "I meant I thought he would want to wait for the wedding."

"He's a man, Relena."

"He cares about those things."

"You should care about those things too."

"I care."

"But you're disappointed?"

She almost regretted bringing it up, but at the same time there was a certain liberation in being able to verbalise it. "There was something missing from it. I don't know what."

"Technical or... emotional?"

"Emotional." She touched the ring hidden at her bosom. "There was nothing wrong technically."

"Quatre...” Dorothy's voice trailed off. Relena looked to find her friend lost in some memory, her eyes dark and abstracted. “He always holds back. Until he's ready to stop being-- polite."

"And I thought that we might have got to that point when we went to bed together." She barely whispered the last two words, wary of their surroundings. "And I don't doubt his feelings for me, but I felt like-- like--"

Dorothy reached into Relena's collar, snagging the chain. She didn't pull it free, stopping even before Relena caught her wrist, but her fingers rested on Relena's neck. "Maybe he's waiting for you to wear this somewhere else."

"We agreed we would wait to announce til he got back from his trip."

"Congratulations. The two of you are very well matched."

"Dorothy."

A frothy necklace of fresh water pearls made a slow walk past them, and Relena gave it her nod. Pepite earrings in gold settings Dorothy selected for herself, and they took a diamond and aquamarine pendant as well.

"What do I do about him?" Relena asked then.

Dorothy went straight to the point with customary nonchalance. "Do you love him?"

"Yes."

"Then love him. And teach him how you need to be loved back." Dorothy touched her hand, then squeezed it gently. "All they that love not tobacco and boys are fools."

Relena found a smile for that. "You told me you'd stopped reading Marlowe."

"I could never."

“The coral rose brooch. That's enough, thank you.” Relena stood. Dorothy joined her, blotting her lips with a small napkin that she tucked away into her purse. “Allow me to buy you the organza.”

"Hm.” Dorothy smiled for her. “As you say, darling.”

That brightened her at last. "Wonderful! Wear it to the wedding and steal all the attention away from me."

"Where else would I wear it?" Dorothy watched her in that sharp way she studied things she didn't understand. But all she said was, "It's about time he realised you're perfect together."

"Very true. Speaking of perfect, Quatre's sister Zarah will be there. When's the last time you heard from her?"

"Zarah and I are over. Don't go matchmaking."

"You made a dashing couple."

"Past tense. Give me time, Relena. Not all of us find our perfect mate the first time."

Or lost the one who might have been. Relena kept herself from twitching the dowdy pleats of Dorothy's dark suit, and let it drop. "As you like, then. But when the photographs of you in the blue make the rounds, you'll be inundated with fan mail."

"It will make the rest of the Winner hags furious. I'll enjoy that."

That, they could both laugh for. Relena had had run-ins of her own with the many Winner sisters. Not all of them were as charming as their brother.

"The two of you should visit more often once you're married," Dorothy remarked.

"We'll try. I don't always like you, Dorothy, but I do miss you when we're apart."

"I feel much the same about you. It's Quatre I wanted to see anyway."

"Oh, please, you and Quatre have nothing to speak about but reliving the good times with sharp fencing foils."

"We're kinky that way. Remember, sweetness, I had him first."

Relena tweaked her friend's slender nose. "Go try on the blue. And wear underpants this time."

 

**

 

He didn't have to verbalise that he didn't want to be seen around town-- or, more accurately, in any place where Duo might find out he'd been before he'd done his domestic duty by letting his boyfriend know he'd got back into town. They didn't even need a car. They walked through the brisk spring air just around the corner, to a run-down little pool hall with a black-lit window sign proclaiming it 'Sharkey's.'

The bar was sticky, but it came stocked with bowls of snackies, and that he liked. Heero chose a rickety pleather stool. Trowa took the one to his left. He reached for the nearest nut selection and tugged it near, styrofoam bowl that was half empty shell and half undersized peanuts. He slid it to a spot between them.

Heero said, "The cardinal rule?"

As if there'd been no pause between it leaving Trowa's mouth and sitting down here to repeat it. Trowa supplied it anyway, because Heero was like that, and he'd known it when he went to Heero's door instead of his own or even Une's, who still thought he was due in on Monday. He was almost more comfortable having that many layers of deception in place again. "Finish the job,” he answered, “and get the hell out of Dodge and never, ever, look back."

The pool sharks were at the tables, the old drunks who bet the big money and took it hard when they lost. Given enough time, he and Heero might end up back here, right there with the other washed-ups who had lived it hard and still managed to get out before it ran them into the ground.

"I went to his house,” he said. “This guy. Osmond. Miklos Kolinsky. Watched his wife walk the kid and the dog down to the market. They didn't know he was dead yet. She'll probably never know why."

"Why does that bother you?"

Good question. "Hell if I know. It shouldn't."

"Maybe it should. But it never has before. That's part of who we are."

They finally got a bartender, a homely girl in short black shorts and a bust-boosting tank top. Heero stayed silent, so it was Trowa who ordered, a pitcher of light beer on draft. Places like this didn't carry anything all that much better; their stock and trade was decent tap, drinkable in great quantities. Trowa was feeling like he might have the room for great quantities tonight. Besides, Heero didn't drink enough to know the difference between good beer and get-buzzed beer.

And Heero wasn't one to drown his sorrows. Heero was one to confront, take the short-term conclusion that would allow him to operate at peak efficiency. It was good policy. It took him through.

Except when it didn't. Maybe, maybe, in his fondest hopes, in the best, brightest of his long-ago hero worship of the sullen little boy who'd fired his imagination, Heero might actually have had some wisdom to share. Heero had pulled him back, once, held him steady with a steely grip for no better reason than that he was slipping and he needed the help. They'd been such different people then. So young.

He never looked behind him. He never had. There was no point, no true qualifiable comparison to be made that made it worth dwelling on who he'd been, where he'd been, what he'd done to who. Even if it was to himself. Shrinks drove him nuts. 'Tell me about your mother'-- over his ass. Not being held enough as a child hadn't affected him as much as his own choices, his own intelligent and purposeful reasoning had. Fuck Duo for being such a self-reflective little poster-child for the mentally dependent.

He should drive by the apartment, after Duo was in bed. Settle his gut over it. It might help, just seeing him there. And fuck Duo if Duo read it in the log later and called him on it.

No, fuck that too. He wanted his space. And he didn't need Duo's imagined permission to stay away from his own home if he wanted to. There were damn good reasons for never looking back and giving over your ability to determine your own, your own-- life.

"You don't have to tell me what happened that made it a special case,” Heero said then. The girl came back with their pitcher, a pair of frosted mugs. “Probably it wasn't really special. It's the things that happen around it that makes it stand out and seem-- awful."

Awful. Not all that awful. A couple of deaths, a handful that wouldn't turn the world on its axis. The judge he'd rescued might or might not have been worth it, might or might not be a good man, like Trowa might or might not have it in him to do something other than shoot at people he didn't know because he was told it was helping something. He knew what Duo would say. If he could ever tell Duo. Would ever. But Duo was embittered right now over it, Duo had had his notions of justice shattered, and he'd done it to himself, protecting Wufei when Wufei was guilty of everything Duo had invested himself in grinding out of existence.

You did things like that for loyalty. If you were Duo.

But he was Trowa Barton. A little disloyalty didn't bother him that much. A little injustice.

He poured full mugs for them both and drank half of his, cold swallows of watery beer that didn't even register. "I couldn't stand the guy. He was pompous and self-important. Less competent than he should have been." He drained his mug and filled it again. They were probably going to need another pitcher. "This is why people like us should always work alone."

"If we only ever worked alone we'd end out alone always. Then we'd be dangerous."

Words into the bar's white noise. There was a football game on the television over their heads, a music video for something thirty years old on another screen. The clack and pop of the pool tables. Two older women opposite them at the bar, talking in low voices with the occasional loud out-burst.

"We never had a problem with that before."

"We've always had each other," Heero said.

Strange statement, from Heero. Maybe not so strange. Heero had never turned any of them away, had never done like Wufei and gone off in a pout to sit outside the circle. Like Trowa had done. He wondered how Kathy was doing, these days.

God. Like it mattered. Like it really fucking mattered anymore how anyone he hadn't so much as thought of in a decade was doing without him. Just fucking fine, was how Kathy was doing.

"Did you ever wonder if you were losing your edge?” he demanded abruptly. “If your screw up was what got the mission in trouble?"

Heero replied, "I've thought it at least once every day since I turned eighteen. Maybe every day since I killed the Federation Doves. I think that might be truer."

That was a shitload of accountability. From someone who'd been all about the end goal, especially.

Excepting that interlude where he'd wandered the Earth offering his loaded gun to his victims. Trowa supposed that was more significant than-- but it still kind of shattered him, on some deep inner level, to hear that, to look at the stony unmoving carving that was Heero Yuy's face and see a man who was carrying that insane amount of baggage.

"I never gave it a thought. Before." Had never had to. He'd been a one-man team since before the wars and he'd probably-- probably die somewhere doing the same. He was good at it. Efficient. Everything about Heero he'd used to idolise he'd earned for himself, he'd become. He was indispensible. Had worked hard to make himself that, to ensure there were a dozen world leaders who owed him, who would need him, who would be afraid to cut him off. He'd relied on that for some part of his sense of self-worth, hadn't he, built himself up a little on that idea, the money, the rewards, the reputation. Une would stand there and tell him if he ever messed up he was on his own, that they weren't going to ride to his rescue. That was the way of the world, spelled out in extra big font on the contract he'd signed, and at the sterling age of twenty-two he'd looked at the odds and laughed and he'd agreed. So sure he was invincible.

Didn't have the others. Duo, sure. Would have been deep in the trenches with him for the asking, shovelling out the shit, getting his hands dirty. Yelling at him the whole time about not asking for help sooner.

Quatre? Maybe. Quatre had his limits. Trowa had his own limits on what he'd ask, especially from Quatre, on what he'd need from Quatre, because as much as Quat seemed to offer unconditional love, it was just a pleasing, pretty disguise. There were always strings with Quat. Trowa hated strings, unless he was the one holding them.

Wufei wouldn't extend so much as a pinky finger. He'd be lucky to get as much from Une, unless she had a reason to help, but then again if he was ever that shit out of luck she'd turn her back and that would be the last he'd ever see of her.

He might have said the same about Heero, but he'd still gone walking to Heero's door, given his choices, and Heero was sitting next to him actually fucking talking it out. So maybe the universe was imploding and this was the only sign he'd ever get. A shot in the dark missing the target.

Osmond was dead. His fault or not, it was going to sit on his shoulders until he did something about it.

He had to try it twice to get it out of his throat. "Maybe it's time to get out of the game."

Heero only nodded. "Maybe so."

"Duo thinks so."

"Duo's very intelligent."

"You've been listening to him too, huh?"

It was a joke. He even smiled. Heero, of course, was deathly serious. "He says he won't come back to Preventers."

"Can you blame him?"

"If it's right for him, maybe it's right for me. Maybe it's right for you."

Relief to know there was a point. Relief to know there was a solution. Not so sure how else it made him feel. Still a little crushed, kind of.

And then it sank in, what Heero had said. Maybe it's right for you. What did Heero know? Had Duo told him? No, Duo wouldn't have-- not even feeling like he did about it all-- Heero sat there not giving anything away.

“Yeah,” Trowa said.

"I think maybe sometimes we made Duo listen to us too much, and not the other way around."

"Made him?"

"We said these were the things we wanted to do. We told him to let us live our lives. We told him this is the way we'd love him, let him love us. At a distance. Carefully."

"Occasionally I wonder why he chose me and not you." He finished his almost-full glass of beer, then found it in him somewhere to add, "Maybe--”

No flash of Duo's face. No memory of his scent or the colour of autumn daylight on his hair. Not even a sense of him, or a longing, except for a desire maybe to get off, a vague tingle in his crotch that didn't do Duo justice and didn't speak too highly of their-- relationship.

Past a certain point, to hell with the vocabulary. They owed each other. He could close his eyes and dredge through the mind and what _Duo_ was was more than thinking about what _Duo_ meant, was things like wide eyes with Heero's fist arcing toward his gut, that night, that Christmas Eve when Trowa stood there wearing Mariemaia's uniform and Heero stood there, too, and Trowa knew what he was going to do before the fist even started moving. Every act, every word out of Duo's mouth, it was an act of faith. He was always ready, ready to jump in, fight, take the swing, take the hit. For whatever was important, whether he'd been called to do it or not, at his own peril, at his own cost, vulnerable as all hell because faith just couldn't conceive of personal pain. He didn't really _know_ Duo, it wasn't love or even admiration yet-- hot body, that grin, the way Duo looked sideways at you to evaluate and then grinned at you like he _knew_ \-- Trowa dredged at all of that and came up with the look in Duo's eyes when he'd put it together, the second Heero hit him, crumpling from the inside at the hurt, but still accepting it as his due. Still accepting it.

The three of them, Heero pushing Duo away and Trowa picking him up again.

“Maybe he didn't,” Trowa said. “Choose."

Heero nodded once. "I never really thought he did. But, regardless, you make him happy. He loves you now."

"You okay with that?"

Heero drank. "I'm okay with it. If you earn him."

He could still laugh. Heero could always make him laugh. He topped off their mugs with the last in the pitcher, drew a circle inside the circle of sweat his mug had left on the bar. "You think so?"

"The trying is important. Maybe part of trying is thinking about where this problem with your 'edge' is coming from."

"He thinks I should see a shrink." Dryly, around a sip of the watery beer. "He thinks everyone should see a shrink."

"He says it's helped him." Heero braved the peanut bowl, choosing a few by some strange criteria, but didn't eat them. "It helped me."

No end to the surprises. "He got you to a shrink? Or did you come up with that all on your own?”

"I might have bowed to a suggestion in the absence of alternatives."

"He made that sentence up. Didn't he? Because it sure as hell doesn't sound like something you'd say. Well, whatever works, I guess."

Heero smiled a little, let it fade. "It's not really about him, though, is it. Maybe you feel like things are changing because they have, and the things that they've changed into have different values. Are more valuable."

"I care more. Yeah." It was what happened when you stopped being immortal. Everything became more important. Dire even. And the faster it seemed to slip away the more desperate he was to hold on. Duo had said that, written it in some journal he didn't keep anymore, forever ago. Forever ago when he'd been too young to think stuff like that. Always in such a rush to be old and annoyingly-- annoying.

"Take something off your plate,” Heero said. “Duo will help you."

"Good to know you have his back anyway."

"I have yours, too. Finish your beer. You can sleep on my couch, if Duo doesn't know you're back yet."

Unfair, to make him so grateful when he'd already had to go baring his innermost thoughts and such. "He's not expecting me for another few days. I kind of wanted to-- decompress, a little, before I went home. I hate taking this shit into the house. You know?"

"I understand," Heero said, and that was the last thing they did say to each other. Neither of them were talkers, really, but this was all the conversation they'd needed, anyway, certainly more meaningful than any they'd had in years. Maybe their only real conversation, since Heero had advised him against throwing his life away when they were fifteen.

Funny how Heero had a knack for that, still.

 

**

 

It was as well Quatre knew nothing about basketball, because it kept Duo from showing off too badly when it became rapidly clear that he more than outmatched Quatre. They sparred slowly, both of them exhibiting spots of perspiration through their button-downs as they took slow, uncompetitive shots at the basket, pausing to exchange idle news as they tossed the ball back and forth. Quatre's guards occupied all the corners of the little lot, their heads making grim revolutions as they searched the street outside the chain-link fence. A group of boys who had wandered past to use the lot had been turned away; Quatre had watched them go with regret, but Duo had soothed him by observing that it was the golden rule of community lots, anyway.

Duo may not have been trying to show him up, but he didn't stint himself on natural talent, either. He sunk a perfect toss, the ball swishing the ragged net, and turned a grinning face to Quatre. “'N' spells Orion,” he announced. “I win.”

“I'm shocked,” Quatre said dryly. He wiped his forehead on his sleeve. Duo bounced the ball to him, and he outright missed it. By chance, it rolled to Wufei, who stood rigid at the edge of the court. Wufei flipped it up with the edge of his foot, and sent it back to Quatre. He managed not to embarrass himself again and caught it neatly.

Duo caught his eyes. Quatre tilted his head stiffly, ever so slightly, in Wufei's direction. Duo went into a deep frown and shook his head. Quatre repeated himself, putting more emphasis into his eyes.

“Damn it,” he heard Duo mutter. Duo swivelled and the ball left his hands. It flew the distance, landing with a soft whup against Wufei's startled catch.

Even if Duo was still avoiding looking directly at Wufei, Quatre thought it made a good start. Duo had a deep-seated sense of fairness, and he was sure that if Wufei just accepted the overture...

Wufei stood staring at the ball. His indrawn breath was audible. Lacking any direction from Quatre, who made a point of not providing help, and perhaps fearing some kind of explosion from Duo, Wufei dithered over it for almost a full minute.

Then he faced the basket, lifted his arms to his head, and sent the ball through the air. It wobbled for just a moment on the rim, and then it fell through.

It hopped its way to Mohammed, who tossed it back to Duo. Duo in turn passed it to Quatre, and said, “How's your lady?”

“Relena's well. On L2, actually, giving a speech. I think it's the Family Coalition.”

“I hate those bozos,” Duo complained. “They're the ones who came out supporting those high-school kids who pipe-bombed an abortion clinic. Why's Relena giving the time of day to radical crazies like that?”

“If you only ever talk to people you like, you don't make much progress,” Quatre said philosophically. “She condemned their endorsement and they know that. By going there she might be able to change a few minds.”

“I love her, but not even Relena's that slick.” Duo sunk another basket, and tossed it back to Wufei. With his eyes squinted as if to avoid the setting sun, Duo asked him, “Don't you think?”

There were days when Quatre could burst with pride for his friends. He tried not to break into a silly grin, when Wufei ducked his head like an awkward school boy and answered. “If I know Relena, she's going there to scold them silly,” he said. “Which may have the same effect. There's not many who can say 'no' to her.” Wufei took his second shot. This time the ball rebounded from the backboard before shooting through the net.

Duo bumped Quatre with a shoulder as he passed by to drop the ball into Quatre's hands. "You need to loosen your wrists," he told Wufei.

"Oh, really." Wufei seemed to decide that was an invitation to play, finally, and he left his lonely position to venture onto the court.

"Yeah. You never listen to me when I tell you that."

"If you ever beat me, I would." Wufei stole the ball from Quatre, who let it go with only a half-hearted protest. Duo made a weak reach, but Wufei had got the drop on them, and he made a smooth basket, jumping up to tip the ball through the net with the tips of his fingers.

“I forgot,” Quatre said. “You both played on the Preventers pick-up league.”

“Not for a few months,” Duo muttered. He pushed his sweaty fringe from his face. “Quat--”

“It's okay,” Quatre murmured. “Give it a try, Duo.”

Duo drew a sharp breath through his nose. “Basic rules,” he called out, loud enough this time for Wufei to hear. “Me and Quat versus the Powerhouse there. Two points in-circle, three points outside, one point free-throws. No foul game.”

They started slow. Quatre, as was probably natural, found himself hanging back, letting the two who knew what they were doing keep the game right at the circle line. They were about evenly matched, as long as Quatre didn't get in the way; he managed to block Wufei from making a shot, and got in one good pass to Duo, but the real action took place between the other two. Duo was the shortest, but he was lean and fast, and Wufei's more muscular grace served him better when he managed to get the ball closer to the net, where he could use jumps and forceful dunks to get his points. Duo had quick feints and a dashing run that could get him outside the circle for his shots before Wufei could catch him. Duo began eking out a lead.

And it might have ended well like that, if there hadn't been one inevitable factor. Their blood was up with the exercise, they were both competitive men, and it might have been a little early to bring those qualities onto the court when neither of them had truly breached a dialogue.

Wufei stole the ball from the air and sank it for himself instead. Duo crowded him on the next play, shy of fouling him but aggressively preventing him from getting into position. Duo won the next five points, and after that managed an excellent free-throw from well behind the line. Wufei had the ball again, and instead of a genteel block, Duo ran a hard intercept. Wufei got the ball back with a fast reach, tried to feint and came chest to chest with Duo again. Quatre, who hadn't been anywhere near the ball in ten minutes by then, saw it happen very clearly: Wufei couldn't get around Duo, so he simply shoved past, throwing an elbow into Duo's collarbone and knocking him back a step. Duo let him get away with it, but his expression was one of dangerous, centred fury, his eyes flat and his jaw locked.

It was a curious sense of acceptance than came over Quatre, then. They were going to blow up, and Quatre knew it, saw it very clearly. But it didn't worry him as it ought to have. They would blow up, and it would be damaging and ugly, yes. But his bodyguards would be there to prevent unnecessary bloodshed, a nice advantage. And angry as they obviously still were with each other, they both had a good sense of the consequences, and Quatre was sure that nothing would be said that shouldn't be. Wufei wasn't the self-destructive man he'd been three months ago, and Duo wouldn't risk a fight so bad that Trowa would feel called to retaliate-- also a nice advantage, if one were going to have a rabidly protective lover be useful for once. Both men felt betrayed, and if they chose to deal with it violently, so be it. There was still time to intervene and call it to a halt before it got too hot, but Quatre made the choice not to.

Wufei was keeping the pressure on Duo. He was playing rough, but not dirty, and when he tripped Duo over his ankle he immediately helped Duo up, and Duo took his hand easily enough. A flurry of intercepted shots went back and forth between them with no points to either player. It was Duo who reached his limit first. He slammed Wufei with a shoulder, took the ball out of Wufei's hands, and then suddenly turned about and passed it to Quatre. Quatre, lost in watching them, saw it sailing toward him, managed to get his hands up, and actually caught it. His triumph lasted until Wufei was standing in front of him, swatting the ball out of his grip so that it bounced hard. Wufei caught it and over-handed it for a clean three-pointer, and then he was demanding, "What's your problem?"

"He's playing too," Duo accused. “Don't fucking ignore him.”

“He dribbled illegally!”

“Leave him the fuck alone. We're not playing rules like that.”

"Fine." Wufei's short fuse lit out. He stalked from the court immediately. "You invited me," he retorted irritably. "It didn't have to go this way."

Duo picked up the ball. His arm went back, and then the ball was winging through the air so fast it whistled. It smashed Wufei in the back and bounced away.

Wufei whirled. For a moment, Quatre doubted his reasoning. The way they stared at each other was savage, unblinking, daring escalation.

Wufei came back on the court in a rush. He scooped up the basketball and fired it at Duo, right at Duo's head. "No, you never do. Do you? You make your own then expect the rest of us to figure out what they are."

Duo caught the ball with an audible smack against his palms, and it was all there in his face for the world to see, the next attack, the wrath that would fly instead of the ball. Quatre didn't even realise he was holding his breath.

And then Duo's face went blank. His face went absolutely blank, woodenly immobile, as he shut every emotion down. He set the ball down very precisely by his feet, and when he straightened his spine was a ramrod, his hands tense fists at his sides. He walked off the court to the bench where they'd left their jackets. He didn't don it, not with the sweat streaking down his face and soaking his chest, but he gathered it in a tight grip and headed for the wire lot door. As he passed Quatre, he said briefly, "See you before you leave," and that was it. Quatre exhaled, then, almost dizzy with the lack of air. Duo crossed the pavement and stepped out onto the street, darting out of the way of a speeding SUV and dodging briskly for the opposite side.

"Oh, come on," Wufei shouted after him, his ragged voice splitting the air. "Don't be such a child! Coward!"

Duo's long legs carried him to the corner. He met a crowd of businessmen crossing from the Prince Edward at the green light, slipped through them so smoothly they never even noticed him. He disappeared around the edge of the valet desk, and then he was gone.

Wufei was actually shaking. He stared at his hands, and then at Quatre. Helplessness slowly replaced the rage. "I'm sorry,” he whispered. “I didn't mean for it to go that way."

Quatre swallowed to ease the dryness of his throat. He didn't give that the obvious answer; all he could do was nod.

Wufei wiped at his face. A horrible sort of impotence, really, maybe the first truly defenceless expression he'd ever worn before Quatre. Paralytic in the face of this one final failure.

Then, incrementally, he gathered himself. His dignity, the first and last shield, pulling his shoulders straight. The little act of deference to Quatre, a humbling inclination of the head. "Want me to get him back?" he asked, subdued.

"No.” Quatre looked for his bodyguards; they were all carefully looking elsewhere. “Leave him alone. He walked away, which is more than you managed. Let him cool down."

"Of course."

Quatre waited for Wufei to meet his eyes again, but gave up as the seconds passed. "I'm hungry,” he said. “Let's go in and shower so we can eat."

"Sounds like a plan." Wufei nodded tightly.

He collected the ball, so he could return it to the corner where they'd found it, and got his coat as well, automatically checking his mobile display for messages. Whatever vestige of his calm decision to let his friends battle to the death produced one final sally. He said, "Perhaps while you're waiting for him to forgive you, you could forgive him for his flaws."

"I'm not angry with him."

"I think the game showed otherwise."

"Sometimes things aren't more complex than they seem."

"Are you going to argue with me?" He wiped his forehead and settled the ball awkwardly over his stomach. "You can. But if you do, it's an end to this. Maybe you're ready. But think about it first."

It was him Wufei stared at, this time. Quatre didn't try to throw words at it, didn't try to explain or qualify or alleviate the weight of it.

Slowly, Wufei replied, "I'm not arguing with you, Quatre."

He accepted that silently. A breath of breeze began to flow, then, and he looked up, by chance perhaps to that spot over the Bay he had pointed out to Duo. The Lagrange clusters were very bright, now, beacons in the night sky. Not even the nearly full moon could dim their brilliance.

Wufei said, "I won't stay with you forever."

"I know.” Quatre freed his eyes with a strange twinge. “But leave for the right reason."

Wufei nodded sharply. "I'm-- sorry I ruined your visit with him."

"Actually-- I want to try and stay longer." There was, after all, still the question of what might be wrong with Trowa. Still, he hesitated. "See how long we can manage."

"I'll stay out of the way. Or perhaps you'd prefer I went back to L4? I could send Miriam to replace me."

"I think today was a sign of progress. Mostly. Come on, I really am starving."

 

**

 

"I've reviewed the tape from the train station,” Une said. “I think it's clear the Prague agent jumped the gun. You can relax about that, at least.”

It hadn't occurred to him that the same cameras he'd been so careful to avoid would actually vindicate him by recording the shooting. "It wasn't my cleanest mission, but that was my assessment," he proffered cautiously.

“Agreed.” She finished writing whatever note she was busy with and gave him her full attention. "I take it you were the Interpol agent who visited every morgue in the city?"

“Who reported that?"

“You are not the only competent agent under my command, Barton.” She gave him a sly little glimmer. “I wouldn't mention the extra-curricular activity when you give your report to the Committee on Monday.”

“No? Huh.”

"The local bureau sends you their apologies. They wanted to be clear that there were problems in Kolinski's last few missions. He was facing disciplinary action. The good news is that all evidence points to you having acted in good faith, as usual, and with considerable quickness of mind. It was a win."

"That's all that counts, isn't it?" He didn't manage his 'usual' edge for the snotty comment, but Une let it pass.

“It is indeed.” She spread her hands. “Anything else?”

"What's the status of my paperwork?"

She made a little noise of impatience. "This conversation again. I was clear the last time you raised the subject."

“I thought I was too. Look, I need out.”

She heard the difference-- not want, but need. He made sure she heard him.

“I answer to the Security Council, Trowa,” she said.

They had some connection. Whatever it was worth. Too much time together, maybe. It didn't quite amount to trust, but he knew her, and she knew him, knew his worth. To her, more than anyone else, he could safely say, “I'd rather leave than act like I want to leave and wake up to one of your new pretty boys holding a gun to my head tomorrow morning.”

A ghost of a smile lifted her lips. “I sympathise,” she said drolly. The top buttons of her blouse were loose, her loose hair was still crimped from the pins she'd piled on the edge of her desk. A faint tinge of lipstick still lingered on her mouth. There was something strangely relaxed about her, almost a fondness in the way she looked at him. Trowa didn't fool himself it would last if she decided he was better off dead. It was one of the top things he liked about her, after all.

Her painted nails tapped her desktop. She said, “Are you doing this because Duo wants it, or is this an authentic ennui?”

Trowa cocked his head at her. "When have I ever done anything for someone other than myself?"

"You flew a Gundam."

He showed his teeth in a smile. "I liked blowing shit up."

"Maybe. Answer my question, Barton. Yes or no."

Faced with the moment, all the clever bullshit he'd thought he'd have at his fingertips evaporated. His throat worked, his jaws moved, but his brain had quit on him. There was-- just-- nothing there to say.

Just sitting there with Duo's face in his mind, looking at him so seriously. _I love you, Trowa._ He wanted that there for himself.

"I'm tired.” He breathed. “I need out. We're getting too old for this shit, Une."

Her nod was slow in coming. He'd got himself pretty drunk to be able to come here and do this, hopped up on Heero's pep talk and understanding, and it had made him stupid enough that he almost took that little gesture for permission or agreement or something that would be fucking positive for him. It hurt to be quite so very wrong.

She folded her hands flat on her desk. "Here's how this will play out,” she explained gently. “I'll take your request to the Security Council. They'll debate letting you go for a week, review your reports, contemplate the possibility of a real security breach. They'll deny your request. And on your next job, they'll send that new pretty boy after you, and either he'll kill you, or you'll kill him, and the next one after that won't miss. A month from now, you'll be dead."

Drunk enough he got a chill, hearing her lay it all out like that. Nothing he didn't know. Nothing Duo didn't know, if Duo could ever bring himself to admit the moon had a dark side and it was the side Trowa had chosen for himself. But, son of a bitch, it still sent a cold wind down his spine. He was hoarse answering her. "I figured it would go that way."

Une exhaled. She sat back, her shirt loose at the throat like that so that she almost seemed human, and said, "So we'll have to be more clever than that."

Son of a bitch, indeed. Une had a brass pair on her. "Maybe I'm unfit for duty,” he said. “Losing my-- mind."

"That would work. If it didn't leave you open to untimely breaches of confidence. Something... maybe post-trauma stress."

"I could attempt suicide." He passed off the joke with another grin.

"As a cry for help or a last resort?" She actually laughed for him. "It was never my intention that you would be locked into this for life, Trowa."

"It was never my intention to survive long enough to want to quit."

"Then Duo must be the positive influence we thought he would be."

"He's perfect."

"Let's not get ahead of ourselves." Then she frowned. "He is perfect."

That was funny. “What?”

"Your entire psychological profile is based on your rabid desire for privacy. Classic lone-wolf.” She leant toward him, intent, excited even. Her eyes were alight with whatever idea had occurred to her. “No-one ever expected you to settle down."

"No, I'm kind of shocked myself."

"Have you and he talked about a commitment ceremony?"

He sat there blinking at her like an idiot. "Commitment-- If I asked him, he'd be sure I had lost my mind."

"He's not my concern. If we can show a real change in you, a real desire to retire from your career in favour of a family life-- you're not only not dangerous to the Council, you're practically benign."

Jesus. He saw where her mind was on it. It wasn't unknown, he'd even met a few wash-outs himself. He'd always thought they were limp fish, couldn't believe they'd leave the game for a house and a wife and a pet. But here he was, the right age for it, and damn if he hadn't just spent a weekend shopping for a fucking house with Duo?

Jesus. Duo.

He was so dry inside he could barely get it out. "He'd never forgive me."

"He would do it for you."

"That's the shittiest reason in the world."

"You were glued to his side during his trial. You're already buying a house together. Is it so great a sham?"

"That's my point.” He shoved to his feet, paced off every inch of her office. “I don't want him to think... fuck, it's just cheap."

Une had her hand to her mouth, as if she were physically stopping herself from shouting him down. "The argument might work without an official declaration,” she said finally. “You're gay. It's not so surprising, perhaps."

He faced her. "You really think it would work?”

"I think it's worth a try. Spies are still people. People fall in love. It's even admirable.” She watched him jitter a path into her floor a minute longer. “Duo would do it for you, Trowa. You put this choice in front of him-- your life or your death. You know what he'll choose.”

Duo would never think twice about it. It would break his heart. It would be the one thing Trowa could ever think of that would really break him.

He was thinking of doing it. It actually stole his wind, realising it. He was already thinking of doing it. He had it in him, this monumental low. He really was everything wrong that anyone had ever accused him of.

“Buy that damn house, Barton," Une said.

"Yeah." He was even breathing, like he hadn't just committed to killing something genuine and wonderful in a man he was supposed to care about, supposed to--

Love you, Duo said, watching him walk out the door like he always did, without saying it back, without so much as calling to say I'm home, baby, I'll be there soon.

"How honest would you be if you were in my position?"

"To the man I loved?" she said quietly.

“Yeah."

Une's dark head swam in his peripheral vision. "I think any kind of commitment is a rare opportunity for honesty and candor. When else do we have a cushion against it? You have a partnership with a man who has already experienced the worst with you. They call it a foundation for a reason."

"You make it sound so reasonable.” He couldn't even look at her. “Yeah. Okay. Work your magic, and we'll name our first kid after you."

"At the very least," she said. "Go buy some nice furniture. Try to do it publicly."

"Yeah." Couldn't face her. He reached for the door handle, wrenched it wide. "Thanks."

"Save your thanks. Let's hope you can give them soon, under better circumstances."


	8. Seven

He woke up Monday morning absolutely ready to go home. Heero was already gone, off on a night shift that wouldn't end until ten am, but he'd left a note that said 'Go home', crossed out, and 'At least try to go home' underneath. There was a stale bagel already spread with cream cheese on a plate for him. Trowa ate it in the spirit intended, locked Heero's apartment and pushed the spare key under the door behind him. He put himself in his car, put his car in gear, and drove all the way across town full of purpose and determination.

He ended out parked by the pool, in the space behind the boxwood bushes where he could watch his own door without being seen from the kitchen window. It was almost seven. Duo would be inside there, already showered and dressed and spiffed up, choking down egg whites and tofu shakes in the delusional belief that he actually liked the shit. He'd get in his car next and check his hair in the rearview, pull out of their spot in the same three-point turn he always made, to get the short-cut out around the back roads to the highway. It would take him exactly thirty-four minutes to get to Cold Case. Monday-- he'd play ball in the back lot with the janitorial staff, because another of Duo's cute little delusions was that anyone who made it off L2 was never going to be worthy of soccer with anyone making more than twelve dollars an hour. He'd work eight and a half hours, no lunch break, and then he'd do everything he could to avoid going home to an empty apartment. He'd go to Juicy Joe's to do last Friday's crossword, or the laundromat, even though they had a washer and dryer at home, because he liked to talk to the old men who sat outside smoking.

He really had meant to tell Duo he was back. But there went Duo in the other car, not even thinking to glance at the pool to see if his boyfriend was stalking him there.

Better, anyway. Duo would get through the work day better if he didn't have to worry about all the things he'd worry about, if he knew Trowa was back. Groceries. Sexy underwear. Cleaning.

Trowa would get through the day better without anyone around to call him a coward.

He did absolutely nothing to ensure himself that kind of peace of mind, however. He'd already gone through two resources in Heero and Une, but the odd weakness of mind he was displaying wasn't ready to quit. Heero's morning paper had been all agog with the unannounced visit of one Quatre Winner, Foreign Minister, diplomat, and sage. Quatre would make him pay through the nose for it, in Quatre's sweet way, but Trowa now had eight point five hours to spend with his thumb up his ass, and that was only fun for the point five, tops.

Quat wasn't hard to find. His security was probably fine for tackling the neurotic fan at the airport, but they weren't much at evasive manoeuvres. They hadn't managed to keep Quat's choice of hotel out of the papers. Getting his room number wasn't any more difficult. Quat still used the same algorithm for creating false aliases. Trowa sat on the dial tone for an indecisive minute; then told himself to suck it up and just call, already. Worst thing that could happen would be--

Wufei answering. _“We asked for an extra set of towels to the suite,”_ their erstwhile murdering friend said for greeting.

“I'll get right on that,” Trowa answered.

 _“Barton.”_ A distinct drop in enthusiasm. _“You're finally back in town?”_

“In the flesh. As opposed to the spirit, in which case you could say that I'm always with you, Fei-fei.” He ignored the spluttering that followed. “Where's Quat?”

_“You'd know, if you'd been here when he arrived.”_

“Which is why I had to call to ask.”

 _“He's very busy,”_ Wufei retorted. _“He's meeting with Temple Mayfield today. And he has an unscheduled meeting this morning that may run late.”_

“So he can squeeze me in between. Never mind. Don't bust a ball figuring it out. I'll call his mobile.” He hung up immediately and redialled. He fully expected a busy signal, so it was a shock to actually ring out before clicking to voicemail. Maybe Wufei had hidden the phone under a rock? Or shoved it down Temple Mayfield's gullet. He tried again, just pure habit-- and lo and behold, it was even Quatre himself who answered.

 _"There you are,"_ Quatre said. _“I wondered if you'd bother to ring me.”_

"Jesus, Quatre.” Trowa pulled out the back way and set a course for the Prince Edward Hotel. “It didn't even take me an entire hour to get through. Want to meet me downstairs for a drink?"

 _"Incognito?"_ Quatre sounded amused with himself, that sly tone he got once in a while.

"In whatever you feel like wearing." Trowa could do sly, too. "Shake your bodyguards. I'll meet you by the elevators. I'll keep you safe."

Quatre laughed brightly. God, Trowa had missed that sound. _"Beat you there,"_ Quatre said, and hung up on him.

Quatre made it to the lobby a minute after him, actually, still in rumpled pajamas and a hotel terrycloth robe. And he was miraculously alone, which suggested he had a certain amount of practise at slipping his bodyguard. He was carrying, though. The bulk of the robe almost hid it, but Trowa was the kind of man who knew to look for suspicious bulges.

"You're armed," Trowa observed aloud, and punched the lift back up to the seventh floor just to annoy the business type who'd been hovering impatiently.

"I almost always am." Quatre kissed his cheek. Trowa didn't turn his head in time to return it, but Quatre's hand lingered on his elbow for a moment longer than necessary. “Rashid Manguanac would personally spank me if I went out without a piece.”

"Threats?” Trowa asked. “Or just being careful? You've got a helluva lot of tough guys up there."

"It pays to be careful."

"Truer words, man." Quat hadn't showered yet, and his hair was standing up on one side of his head. He hadn't shaved yet, either. He had just a hint of golden stubble that had left the tiniest rasp on Trowa's cheek. But more important were the eyes, looking up the inches that separated them with eyebrows raised over in a distinct expression of expectation.

Something on his mind, then. There was always something on Quatre's mind. He was the only one who was like that. Duo never put it down, either, but Duo was always off on the unreals, the imaginings-- who'd hurt who and what could be done about it and his favourite, the ever-loving _why_. Quat-- Quat was all numbers. Quat was all strategy. Rook to E7.

"I'm surprised to see you here," Trowa offered, tentative reconnaissance to feel out the lay of the land.

"Are you?" Nice prompt answer, eyebrows perfectly arched. "So was Duo."

"Did, uh, did I call you the other night?"

"Yes. Do you remember doing it?"

"Sort of." He turned and went walking. Quatre came in his trail, slippers making little velvety slaps on the marble tiles as they crossed the lobby. They went down the broad brocaded steps into the dining area that spread lavishly below the lobby and spilled out onto a balcony big enough for an entire wedding party. Everything was that wheat-coloured gold and ivory white, just like Quatre behind him, and it hurt his eyes, a little, trying to take it all in. Marble columns four stories high, glass-topped tables with glowing candles too-bright points of light, palm trees and bamboo adding texture to the rest of the visual noise. He sat in a blue chair just for the relief, the first blue chair at the first empty table, and Quatre settled across from him, tucking his robe between his knees and resting his elbow next to a vase filled with yellow roses.

"That's why you're here?" Trowa asked. “We talk on the phone all the time.”

"You asked me to come. Begged, really."

He didn't immediately believe it. Number one, he did not beg. Not from Duo, and definitely not from Quatre, who didn't have anything on the menu anymore that Trowa would die without. Number two--

Number two, he realised, was that he didn't have any way of knowing for sure who he had or hadn't called. Did he.

Quatre touched his hand on the tabletop. “You want a coffee? Something stronger?”

Waitress standing right next to him, crisp white shirt, blonde hair tied up in a bun. “Bloody Mary,” Trowa said. “Heavy on the Grey Goose.”

“Same,” Quatre told her. “And something light to eat, whatever the seasonal fruit is.” He waited until she was gone, her footsteps echoing up the vaulted ceiling far above their heads. “You've gone pale.”

“I'm fine.”

“Bull,” Quatre answered bluntly. “Put your head between your knees.”

“I'm not fucking putting my head between my damn--” He rubbed the back of his neck. “Aren't you worried about the paparazzi?”

“The hotel does a good job keeping them out, and if they absolutely have to see me eating my breakfast, I wish them joy in selling the photographs. Trowa, what's--”

Their waitress was back, pushing an actual silver cart over the tile to their table. Water glasses first, poured out of a glistening pewter ewer and topped with the brightest lemon Trowa had ever seen, and then she stood there in front of them making their drinks. Eighteen choices each-- clam juice, tomato, worcestershire, tabasco, horseradish, celery salt, black pepper, garnish. Quat was eminently patient with the girl, no sign on that smooth smile that anything was amiss. Trowa let him take care of the PR, slouching low in his uncomfortable blue chair with a ragged thumbnail between his teeth, trying to work off a rough edge of worry.

Not worry. He had nothing to worry about. Just a little life-imploding uncertainty. Nothing new, actually.

“Cheers,” Quatre said finally, and clinked their glasses. He sat back with a stick of olives, twirling it slowly. "Anything you want to talk about, maybe?"

"I think I'm fucked in the head. Somehow." He picked up his drink. Rimmed with kosher salt crystals. He licked and sipped, steady swallows until he could feel the cold liquid chasing down his chest. Quatre sat silent, waiting on him to fill in the important details in the dire declamation; or maybe just accepting as irony what had come off like a joke. God knew.

Except it made him angry, a little, a lot. Duo was the one who went around concerned about whether his head was in full operational order. Trowa had never given it a first thought, much less a second. He made a jagged up-down shrug of the shoulders. "Little things, like that phone call. A few not so little things. I'm working on the why."

Just like that, the joke was over. Quatre leant toward him, fingers splayed on the glass all pointed at Trowa, reaching for him without quite braving the distance. "You know what caused it? Blow to the head?"

"Not anything like that. Not that I can remember." Not on the job, none of the recent jobs anyway, and if it went back further than a few months--

"Look, can you just make sure you get him the hell away if something happens? Somewhere safe."

Quat let out a breath in a little huff. "Drink your breakfast and stop saying ridiculous things."

"Yeah. Sorry." Good advice. It tasted sour on his tongue. He fiddled with the celery sticking out of his glass, bushy green end. It crunched when he bit it.

"Duo didn't say anything,” Quatre said, in an abrupt sort of voice, the 'figure it out' voice. “So he must not have noticed."

Like it never occurred to him that Duo might not spill everything for the asking, especially in front of Chang. "He has," Trowa said.

"Then he's clearly not scared enough to be making escape plans."

"He's not going to run, no."

"You wouldn't love him if he was a man who'd run. Anyway, you don't know there's anything worth running from. Duo told me about the car accident. You didn't hit your head and forget it?"

"I think I was already sick." That didn't taste too good going down, either. Trowa drowned it with a hefty swig of icy clam juice. Good vodka. He was already starting to feel it. "I might have-- been for a while. Possible, anyway."

Quatre finally initiated his own sip. One, just touching his lips, and then it was back to the table, right on the ring of condensation it had already left. "Does Duo know you're back yet?"

He was too predictable. Or Heero spoke out of turn. "I needed a little time."

"He could use the company. I don't think he's entirely all right. But then, I suppose maybe he never was. You balance him out more than you know."

"I know. I know. I'm going home tonight."

"Take the time, if you need it." Quatre rubbed his cheek. "I'm sorry. That was sort of contradictory."

Trowa relaxed enough to laugh. "A little bit, Quat."

"I'm trying to be marriage-minded."

"Since when are you the expert?"

"The reverse, I'm afraid."

Queen to mate. "You're going to marry her,” Trowa guessed, and all the gold around him got a little dimmer, for a second. “Aren't you?"

Quatre nodded. Didn't quite meet his eyes, except then he did, looking right up at Trowa to make sure they both understood. He meant it.

"Well. Congrats." He let the last three swallows just fall down his throat, pushed the glass off to the edge of the table for refill. How was that for--

"Don't be surprised,” Quatre said softly. Now who was begging? God, that Quat could still do this to him. “I told you I would. It's time. I'm tired of being alone."

"You always hated that, yeah.” Sand in his mouth. He licked dry lips. “I'm surprised you took this long. Once you make up your mind... She's a great girl. You'll be happy."

"Can I confess something?"

"Always, baby."

"We had sex."

Said in front of a room that could be peppered with mikes and cameras and any passerby could stop to listen-- and at least their waitress did, before hurrying back toward the bar. Trowa sat there grinding his teeth until he realised he was doing it, and then he did it some more anyway. "You and Relena?"

"She initiated. When I asked her."

There was no fucking reason he needed to know this. "Was she-- it-- okay?"

"It was..." Quatre pushed his glass forward one inch and pulled it back again. "You were my first and I-- there's only been one other time between you and Relena."

Well, Jesus, no shock there. Quat had always been kind of puritanical, too buttoned up for his own good. He'd even rebelled like a good repressed choir boy-- fuck the first guy who looked at him sideways and spend the rest of his life pretending it never happened. Unless that 'other time' was a random male hookup or an apple-cheeked intern, in which case Quatre was a lot more interesting than he got credit for.

Not entirely fair, that last part. Quat didn't hide his gay phase, wasn't ashamed of it. It was just completely in character, that he'd marry the first girl he managed to bag. If Trowa had been in possession of a pussy, Quat probably would've proposed. Who knew. Trowa might even have said yes.

Not entirely fair, that either. Not like neither of them had asked where it was going. They'd just been better at the bed end of the conversation.

"I screwed you over bad, I guess, huh?" he said.

"No." Quick denial. Quat actually meant it, which probably meant he hadn't thought it through enough. The red flush that followed suggested some increased awareness. "Look, never mind. The point I'm aiming for, which is by now tangential at best, is that I think for a very long time I've been acting like a third wheel in your relationship with Duo. I'm going to stop now. It's past time."

No end to the revelations. Something ironic about the whole thing. Five months ago he hadn't so much as booed at Quat in half a year, and he'd lived in the same city as Chang and Heero and hadn't seen either of them in the flawed flesh in twice as long. Duo had talked to him, of course, because relationship or not Duo was the kind of person who made efforts, but really there hadn't been a Gundam Five. They hadn't had a thing you could label a friendship, because they hadn't had a hell of a lot in common outside of piloting skills for machines that didn't exist anymore. That, and half of them had fucked the other half, and it took a lot of concentration to avoid the only people who knew your name. Duo was the one who didn't do that, Duo was the one who was all hot to trot with his mistakes, not shelve them away. It made him neurotic and it made him hell to live with. But there was one kind of mistake Duo didn't make noise about, didn't rub his nose in, and that mistake was sitting across the table from him-- saying good-bye.

"Me too." He was husky. Had to clear his throat. He wet it with the ice water at the bottom of his Bloody Mary. "Maybe it's, uh, time for me to stop-- thinking that somehow you'll always be a little bit mine."

"I didn't try very hard to dissuade you on that point." Quatre had the grace to drop his eyes, at least. "I genuinely wanted it to work."

There was a couple miles of silence on the ass-end of that statement. There was nothing to say. There was just-- his mind didn't even search for words. He just sat there breathing, because that's what you did, when you finally acknowledged something that had failed a decade earlier.

Finally Quatre pushed his drink at Trowa. "Sorry. This isn't why I came. You finish it."

"Thanks.” He gave it a good go, six swallows to get halfway through it, and he felt just slightly light-headed after. It helped. “Whatever. Talk if you want to."

"I came to listen to you talk."

"And we'll get around to it. Or are you evading?"

"I'm a politician. I can do both."

"We're getting married, too. We're buying a house. And I'm quitting. There. I talked."

That broke the tension. Quatre stared openly at him. "Are you joking?"

"Nope."

Quat burst into laughter. Real laughter. "You are. You have to be. Married? You, to Duo?"

"Yeah. Me, to Duo."

Quat, being Quat, noticed the flaw in that argument. "You haven't exactly told Duo about these plans, have you?"

"Most of them," Trowa hedged.

"If Duo thought he was getting married, especially to you, he would have been on the phone before you could get off your knees."

The tragedy of that was that Quat was probably right. Duo might well be less into the moment than in getting to use his phone tree. Maybe. Be nice if Duo surprised him, for once. "Think he'll say yes?"

"I suppose he might have to weigh his options, let down his other boyfriends gently."

"That's a relief." Mostly just relief that Quat wasn't going to make this a big goofy congratulations moment; but then, Trowa hadn't exactly gone off the hook and ordered the champagne for Quat's announcement, either. He was pretty sure Quat wouldn't let him go with just that, though, but Quat could be distracted by the newest shiny thing as much as the next guy, and sometimes you got lucky if you drove fast enough. "So,” he asked then, “Where's Wufei?"

Gold mine. "Ahh,” Quat said. “I see you haven't been watching the news. He and Duo had a rather spectacular blow-up, almost."

Shit. It was inevitable, but damn it, couldn't they both just behave like grown-ups and move the fuck on? "What happened?"

"I butted in. Of course. You know how I am."

No shit, Captain Obvious. "Maybe you should tell me all of it.”

"I can do better." Quat left their table. Trowa finished his drink while he was gone, and sat chewing on the celery stick until Quat came back, slippers slapping, to hand him one of the print mags that sold at the news kiosks. “Page six, I think.”

Trowa flipped to it. It was quite the headline-- “Gundams at War!”-- and the pics were lurid enough to make it look like the truth. A couple long-lense shots, grainy but clear enough, the community basketball court the street over. And an unflattering close-up of Duo firing the ball at Wufei. Excellent motion shot.

"He looks mad," Trowa understated. No article, just a blurb speculating about why Quat was standing in the back looking like someone's kid brother accidentally witnessing a knife fight. "They'll work it out, eventually."

"That was my thought, but it might have been a teeny bit premature. Duo handled himself better than they made it look."

"And Wufei?"

"Hasn't quite accepted the idea that he might not be able to yell his way back into Duo's good graces."

Trowa grinned. "Sounds like Chang."

"There's so much anger there. Both of them." Quatre sucked an olive from the toothpick, the back of his pointer finger resting against his lips as he chewed. "I'd say we should lock them in a room until they figure it out, but that could get bloody."

"Extremely,” Trowa said. He ripped out the pic of Duo, though. It would be funny on their fridge. “Open spaces seem best for the present."

"I don't know how much longer I can keep Wufei in one place. Especially now that Relena and I are certainly getting married. I don't think I can expect them to split their time with me by treaty. I need to choose."

Quatre was in a peculiar mood, stating the manifest as if it held profound and squirrely secrets. "So let him go," Trowa said.

"I know the burden was self-imposed and I know the idea of curing him out of sheer spiritual obligation was more pretty words than actual effectiveness, but I've managed nothing more these past four months than keeping him prisoner."

"You think he's still dangerous?"

"Yes."

That was blunt. He did feel a little colder for hearing it. Quatre was the optimistic one, the one in love with the generosity of the human heart; even Duo hadn't protected Wufei because he really believed he'd rehabilitate given the chance. "Then maybe you should turn him in. Or turn him loose and let him deal with himself. He'll self-destruct eventually." Gundam Pilots were good at that.

"What would you do?" Quat asked seriously. "I mean really. What would you do?"

He took the last olive Quat offered. "During the trial, I wanted to kill him. Now, I don't know. Really. Let him disappear. He's good at that. He's done nothing we haven't all done. His chief mistake was letting Duo shoulder the blame." He sucked on the oily fruit, and swallowed it half-chewed. "It's over. Maybe it's time for all of us to let it be."

Quatre took his word as gospel, thinking it over far more deeply than Trowa had before saying it. But even on reflection he wouldn't have taken it back. He'd never particularly cared about the details of what Wufei had done-- who he'd done, anyway-- and he didn't think any one of them really had. He knew Duo knew it all, because Duo was the one who'd put it together in time to practically catch Wufei in the act, but it wasn't one of the existential crises Duo had gone through during the trial, and it hadn't come up after, either. At the gut level, it just wasn't a shock that there were dead criminals lying around in pieces in San Francisco. Trowa had his own body count, and the only difference between the ones he'd shot and the ones Wufei'd done was that Une had stamped off on the sly for Trowa.

Probably if he'd asked her, she'd have signed it off for Wufei too, and solved a lot of problems.

"I miss you." Quatre smiled at him. His chin rested on his hand, the sleeve of the robe slipping back on his wrist. "I confess I was pathetically glad when you called."

"Sorry it's been shitty to be around me."

"What I meant rather was that it was shitty to not be around you. I do love you. You're an integral part of me."

"That's the dangerous part, isn't it? That we feel that way. And always will."

"Yes," Quatre said, but the smile stayed in place. That was really the death knell of it. He didn't think Quatre could have smiled like that before now. Before the Princess in Pink.

And the weirdest thing was-- Trowa was smiling, too.

"I think we can handle it," he said softly.

"Most days. Every other Tuesday."

"It's a start." He shoved his chair back, leaning on the legs so they'd scrape up the marble. Heads turned. He showed his teeth in a grin for that one. "Gonna hit the pavement. I have shit to do."

"Like ask Duo to marry you. Advice-- have a ring when you ask him. It lends credibility. And kneel. He's really a romantic, you know."

"And he'll grin and say, 'while you're down there ...'"

"Oh, such a hardship for you."

"You probably remember." Quat rolled his eyes. Trowa bent to kiss his cheek. "You came a long way just to make sure I was all right,” he whispered, since he was already leaning there. “I appreciate that. Come to dinner before you leave. You can even bring Wufei. Duo might cave if he can pretend to poison Wufei's food."

"We'll come." Quat bumped his fist against Trowa's arm. "Go on, then."

 

**

 

When Duo schlepped in from his football game, Marquez was right on him at the lift, foot-tapping and coffee guzzling. "We had a meeting this morning," Marquez opened. Not hello; not even You're late-- not that Duo was. He checked the clock on the wall just to be sure. It was five til eight.

And he hadn't so much as taken off his coat or stashed his duffel. "We still do,” he answered. “At nine."

Marquez went quiet for a moment, and Duo thought he might have had it licked. Marquez just stood there fiddling with the buckle of his ugly belt.

They made it almost a minute in silence. Then Marquez said, "It's going to take almost an hour in morning rush traffic."

"Holy shit, calm down,” Duo snapped, and then tried not to let it out like that again. “There are short cuts,” he said, with more appropriate moderation. “I've been there before once or twice, you know?"

Sarcasm was utterly lost. Marquez let out a nice militaristic, "Fine," and whirled on his ankle with a dramatic flair of his jacket back to his desk. Duo slammed his shit onto his desk and turned on his computer. Marquez, who apparently slept at his desk just in case he might miss a meeting, had a files spread everywhere already, but they didn't seem to be satisfying him. He sat there shuffling them, opening, shutting. The cardboard breeze fluttered the loose papers held down by his nametag.

Duo sighed slowly out. "Fine. I'm ready."

Marquez looked up. "You have time for coffee."

Well, that answered for how their outing together was likely to go. Duo kept his face still, mostly to distract himself from grinding his teeth. "Put on a tie. Something made this decade. Don't want the Preventers to look down on us city cops."

That galvanised some proper fear. Duo had Marquez pegged as the kind of guy who wanted the respect of everyone around him, and nothing would keep his mouth shut like the possibility of humiliating himself in front of the premier tactical intelligence force in the Sphere. He got a tie out of a drawer, plenty ugly enough to match the buckle. He tied it without looking. "Who is it we're speaking to?" he asked.

"This woman I know from the war, who knew Merquise." Duo found a portfolio in his drawer and put in a fresh pad of paper. He stuck a pen over his ear, and shrugged back into his jacket. "Her name is Lucy Noin."

Marquez stopped mid-knot. "Lucretia Noin?"

That was it. Duo threw the portfolio onto the desk. "You're OZ."

“Duo,” Shazza tried to intervene.

"There is no OZ,” Marquez said. He stood, tugging his tie straight. “Not any more."

"Bullshit." Shazza tried to stop him as he passed, but he slipped her hand and made it out the door. He heard scrambling behind him, and Nadia calling too, for Rico, but he didn't stop. He went for the lift at the end of the hall and punched for down.

Marquez caught up to him just as the car arrived. "Come on, Maxwell. It's ancient history. For one of us, anyway."

"Seriously, I don't want to talk about it even a little tiny bit.” Duo went in first, with Marquez hot on his heels. “Let's just drive. I'll drive."

Marquez muttered something that sounded suspiciously like "hothead". Duo manfully ignored it. The lift let out at the parking garage, and Duo put his shorter legs through a workout trying to stay ahead of the other man. He used the fob to unlock the car at a distance, and got right in as soon as he pulled even. Marquez was a couple steps behind, and that gave Duo time to turn on the engine and shift into reverse. As soon as the passenger door was shut, he was rolling backward out of his space.

“Hold on, wait a second,” Marquez said. Duo halted, and Marquez opened and shut the door again. “It's not quite going.”

“It's been sticky since the accident. It's fine. The warning light's off.”

Marquez let go. "I'm not the one making this an issue."

“The door.”

“Not the door, Maxwell.”

"No, you're perfectly cordial about everything."

"I've been appropriate."

He was gritting his teeth. He couldn't make himself stop.

"Going to throw something at me now?"

Not even funny. Not even funny in that I-know, I-know way. The trash mags had been all over his fight with Wufei at the public lot. He hadn't even imagined there'd be a camera around, so used to Quat not being Mr Important. Not only were there pictures, there was tape, and he'd seen it playing on the local news at six.

"Look,” Marquez said. Because that was Duo's brand of luck, which was to say no luck, as in no-one ever just fucking let it drop before they reached the danger stage. “Look,” Marquez said, “I'm the same man you worked with for months before you knew."

Yeah, and he hadn't liked Marquez all that much then, either. "Do you want to cover questions for Noin or do we just listen to NPR for an hour?"

Marquez rubbed his chin, then tossed up a hand. "I think we should discuss them. I'd rather not look stupid in the meeting."

Professionalism. The last refuge. Duo said, "When Merquise left Earth he went with her. They were on Mars Colony for six months before he died. If he made any deathbed confessions, it would have been to her. They were close."

"I remember." A moment of silence, then, which Duo assumed was Marquez formulating his next line of inquiry, and of course turned out to be more Marquez thinking of ways to make further hell of his life. "I studied under Noin at Lake Victoria."

He had a passing thought-- Wufei never ran into these kind of people. "Prior to immigrating, Merquise spent nine months on temporary assignment here in San Francisco. During that time he started-- frequenting places like Club Exilio. He had a type."

"Like that slut you were working for information?"

"That slut is as close as we've got to an eye-witness, so I wouldn't call him that to his face."

"He's not sitting in this car." Marquez performed another moment of silence. "Never mind."

“I think we should pursue--”

"I'm finding it difficult to believe."

Duo took the on-ramp and merged onto the highway. They were definitely in on rush-hour, but it was moving fast enough, and anyway he'd have a better chance of escape jumping off the overpass than making a run for it downtown. "What difficult to believe?” he said. “That Zechs wasn't above using his height and his authority and his money to pick up teenagers?"

"Yes. It's not the man I knew."

"He wasn't the man you knew. He was drunk or high and he--" Duo struggled with saying it. He was used to thinking of Zechs with a certain amount of blame attached. Maybe more fair than unfair. But maybe not. Duo had known exactly what he was getting into the first time he'd let Zechs touch him. "To a certain extent... he wasn't responsible for his actions. God knows the war-- whatever side you were on-- it didn't end fast or pretty."

"Not everyone was ruined by it."

"Yeah, but some of us were, and you can sit there and negate what we went through or you can try to understand when I tell you how messed up it was then."

"I was there too." Marquez wiped a line of dust from the dashboard. "Is that why you're perpetually pissed off?"

"It's eighty percent, yeah. You wanna dump on me some more or can I finish going over the agenda?"

"It was a question, not a slam. Lighten up. I'm your partner, not the enemy.”

Partner. Oh, hell no. You had to marginally trust a partner. He didn't even have to look at Marquez to picture him in uniform. Victoria fucking Academy. He'd probably laid awake at night, dreaming of shooting colonists.

Duo took a deep breath. The tea he'd brought from home had gone cold in the travel mug, but it wet his tongue. Stopped him from indulging more knee-jerk reactionary agitprop. Even if Marquez gave in, Duo had to be above that.

“Continue," Marquez said.

“Yeah.” He swallowed the last of the tea and reached behind the front seats to put the mug in the back cupholder. "I want to question Noin about the last six months. The last nine, really, since Kel turned up dead. If Zechs had a personality change. He wrote me-- he told me at one point he was trying to get sober. He never did, but if there are any other indicators of a guilty conscience, it could be helpful."

"So what's my role in this interview?"

"Think of whatever I don't and watch her. You were supposed to be someone completely objective, but if it's been a decade since you've dealt with her, it may be fine."

"I can be objective."

"Have you ever been trained in reading faces?"

"In the academy and on the street. I think I can give a good assessment."

Of a woman he worshiped, a woman who had no cause to love Duo and who probably knew a little too much about just who Duo had been protecting from murder charges three months ago. Peachy.

It got even better at Preventers HQ. Duo embarrassed himself right off by turning in to the wrong parking lot, and having to wheel around to find the guest garage across the street. It got worse when they were buzzed into the lobby. Duo had made sure they knew he was coming, but he hadn't thought ahead to the part where the desk guard would be someone he knew, someone he'd seen every day back when he'd had a career and a life here. It was Miss Nick, the retired black woman who'd been the only smiling face Duo had seen for years before Wufei and Heero had joined too, the woman who'd sat with him in the cafeteria when no-one else would, who'd made him laugh when he was in danger of forgetting how. To see her looking at him with pity now almost broke his will to go through with the day. Accepting the cheap plastic visitor badge from her was like being sacked all over again, and worst of all, she knew it. He couldn't even meet her eyes then.

The last time he'd been in the lobby, he'd been storming out. No, the last time had been when Quatre was walking Wufei to a car to drive away forever, or it had felt like forever at the time. All the secrets had been safely kept and things would get better, that's what he'd been thinking; but he'd still been fired, still guilty of covering a deadly crime, and he'd already known then he'd never be back here, in this place that had become so much a part of his life. It was too hard. No more bright halls lined with big bright windows, inviting the world to witness the good they were doing inside. No more awards on walls, no signed plaques of the original units who'd all lost friends in the early days, when there'd been more war than peace still. Men he'd fought alongside who were nothing but ash now were only memorialised on that wall. Now he'd never even see them through that.

Another home he was barring the door to.

Marquez, of course, picked that moment to be sensitive. He said, "Different, huh?"

"Yeah." Duo smacked the sticky name tag Miss Nick had given him over his lapel. "Noin said she's in Homicide today."

"Is that usual?"

"She's Internal Affairs. She moves around."

That got a scowl. IAB was no more beloved with regular cops than with Preventers. Good for Marquez to go in with his back up. It might keep him from kissing Noin's hand when he saw her. Or saluting in front of the rest of the Sphere.

Everything familiar, now. The same sticky button on the lift. The crack in the mirror overhead. And letting out onto the department, like he had for years, taking the same exact strides across the scuffed tile. The desks were arranged in staggered pairs across the large open floor. Heads came up as they entered, he and Marquez standing out in their suits with all the other agents in uniform, here. Duo would have felt more at home in Narcotics, though it would have been worse having to walk in on people he'd worked closer with, known, loved like the real brotherhood Preventers was supposed to be--

Noin was at Heero's desk. And Heero did not look happy about it. Duo sped up, catching his friend's eyes with a subtle wave. You okay? he mouthed. Heero grimaced a pained hello smile, and shook his head.

Duo made as much noise as possible coming in for landing, kicking at an empty chair and knocking his portfolio on Heero's desk. Noin jumped back out of her scolding pose, her hands coming off her hips into startled fists. Duo forced an expression of hope and good cheer, and said, "You're not letting Heero butt into my appointment time, are you?"

She looked caught in the act, for just a second there. Duo had seen the same expression on every dope dealer he'd ever busted. She didn't want him to see her ripping Heero a new one. Her right hand smoothed down over her stomach. "We'll finish this later,” she told Heero.

"Fine." Heero twirled his pen over his knuckles. He tilted his head up to Duo. “Fine,” he repeated, his lips turned up slightly. Duo rapped his fist gently on Heero's shoulder.

That was when Noin saw Marquez. Marquez, who'd clearly been waiting on it, straightened up smartly, though he stopped short of clicking his heels. Recognition was written all over her face.

“OZ?” Heero murmured.

“Shocking, I know.” Duo squeezed Heero's shoulder. “Be here to comfort me when I get out?”

“Of course.” Heero tugged on the tail of Duo's tie. “Why did you dress up? I thought you didn't care about Preventers any more.”

Duo flushed. “Shut up.”

“I only have a short time,” Noin interrupted. “If you don't mind, can we just do this in the break room? I still have two agents to talk to by the end of the day.”

“Yeah.” Duo left Heero's side, pointing Marquez toward the break room at the opposite end of the room. “You want tea, coffee, Noin?”

“No, thank you. I just want to do this as quickly as possible.” She led the way, her heels rapping on the floor. Marquez came behind Duo, and shut the door after them. No-one sat at the table. Duo made an effort not to look like he expected to get hit, but he kind of did. She wasn't looking at him straight on, but the tension was thick enough to slab on bread.

He broke the silence. “I'm not unaware that you'd be justified in asking me to keep it quiet. In expecting me to.”

Marquez shifted his balance. Yeah, Duo thought, take that proof and suck on it all you want. Hang both of us for it. And for this, because Noin is going to say yes.

It was a near thing. Every excruciating nanosecond of it played out on her face, so raw it hurt to look at. She struggled to lock it down. She sank slowly into a chair, her hands gripping each other tightly, almost in an attitude of prayer.

“No,” she said. “No. It's not necessary. Zechs isn't guilty of this.”

“Do you have any proof, Ma'am?” Marquez asked.

“I don't need any.” She was getting her composure back, a little colour in her cheeks again. She pressed her hands flat on the table. “Zechs was capable of-- even of things that seemed to verge on evil. But not murder. Never murder. And it doesn't matter anymore, anyway.”

“Doesn't matter?” Duo yanked back the chair corner to her and plunked down in it hard. "It does. I don't know how much, but I need to find out. Even if I'm the only one who ever hears the truth. That's what you said to us, on Peacemillion. Remember that? The truth always matters, Noin, even if it's just so I can lay this kid to rest."

"Then find out for yourself,” she said evenly. “Then let him go."

Marquez took a step to bring himself even with them at the table. "He never said anything to you? Anything you could remember about that period."

Noin tapped two fingers. "He said he'd screwed it up with you.” She meet Duo's eyes now, hers dark and flat. “And that he was sorry. Zechs didn't keep secrets. If he'd killed that boy, he'd have told me. He didn't spare me a single detail of his more-- sordid activities. It was a test. If I would stay after everything I'd heard, if I could be steadfast knowing everything-- he was like General Khushrenada, in that. I suppose that's where he learnt it."

Duo finally registered the warning buried in that. She knew all the details. Including, then, secrets that-- hell, his career in Preventers already was over, and if she said anything in front of Marquez that ruined the new one, he'd adapt. There was no way he was doing this twice, and come to that, it made him angry she would try to wave him off. He wasn't some irritating fly insisting on dredging up past trash. It wasn't damn comfortable for anyone in the room, but there was a dead boy who deserved an ending to his story. "All right,” Duo said. “We'll play it your way. Zechs did keep secrets. He kept his identity a secret for twenty years, we'll start with that. He was capable."

"Not from anyone important to him."

"He was sleeping with the victim. Who was all of fourteen. Sometimes when people fall, they fall hard."

"Zechs never relinquished that much control. Not enough to commit a crime of passion."

“He blew a hole in the Earth, as I recall. You don't think Libra had anything to do with passion?”

“He targeted an unpopulated region of Siberia.”

“And then tried to drop Libra on Earth. I think his nightmares about it would argue he lost his head a little. If it had really been a dispassionate decision--”

“Just because it tormented him, you can't claim you know what motivated him to do it.”

"Look, I can tell you exactly how much control he had when he was flying and pissed off in bed. It would have been a horrible mistake and he would have been devastated, I absolutely believe that, but Noin, it could have gone down."

"You're right. He would have been devastated. And a lot of things haunted Zechs. But this... if he'd killed that boy, he wouldn't have thrown the body in a dumpster and pretended it had never happened. He'd have turned himself in."

"Like he turned himself in after Libra?"

“You especially don't have room to speak about that, Duo Maxwell.”

“We're getting afield,” Marquez said firmly. “Ma'am, do you recall any suspicious--”

Duo said, "I want to see the note."

Marquez cut himself off so fast he almost choked. Noin blanched. Duo stared her down, or tried to. The longer the silence, the more strength she pulled back. He was the one who blinked first. When he looked down, it was his fist that was clenched on the table, impotent.

She breathed like she was just remembering how to. "I don't carry it around with me, Duo."

"I know.” He rubbed a knuckle over his dry lips. “And I'm sorry for saying it like that, I didn't mean to. I'm sorry. If it would be possible, I would like to be able to see it. I won't put it in the official case file if it doesn't bear on the case."

"I understand." She took a card from her pocket, and wrote two lines on the back. "If you really must, come by my apartment this evening, and I'll let you see it." She pushed herself to her feet. “If you'll excuse me, I'll return to my work.”

"Thank you," Marquez said. “For your time.”

She inclined her head. "Not before seven. I never make it out of the office before that."

Marquez blew a low whistle when she was gone. “I thought she was going to pull out a weapon and blast you one, for a second.”

“It wouldn't be the first time she's thought of it, I'm sure.” Duo pushed his fringe out of his face and held it there. His head felt hot. “Sorry. That was... uglier than I planned.”

“Was that-- Heero Yuy, out there?”

“Yeah.” Duo let his hair fall. “Wanna meet him? I owe him a Coke, anyway.”

 

**

 

He bought tulips. Yellow ones. They came in a vase. He knew they had vases-- flowers were a good peace offering, even when they weren't quite at war-- sooner or later he'd piss Duo off, and Duo remembered the nice gestures, especially when they were unsolicited. But the vase was pretty enough, and came with a ribbon and the little tiny white weedy flowers, so he bought the package, and decided he'd put it in the bedroom. If they started arguing the minute Duo walked in the door, he'd still probably be able to move Duo toward sex without straining his back, and the flowers would close the deal. No, on that useless little table Duo had just installed by the front door, a table with no other function than to catch their keys and gather dust. Duo could move them to a more 'aesthetically pleasing' place on his own time, and Trowa would get all the brownie points right off the bat.

But that hefty activity really only occupied him for an extra half hour. He didn't do the shopping, because Duo always wanted to pick a fight over his choices, unless it was alcoholic. He didn't want to sit around an empty apartment or, God forbid, go back to Heero's, although he still hadn't set aside time to do a thorough hunt through Heero's closets for the strange and repugnant masturbatory material he was positive Heero had hidden away somewhere.

Probably he needed to get some friends. Really, the only pilot he had anything approaching healthy with was Duo; Quat, on the good days. If they both remembered to try at it.

Well-- there was Marc Addison, Attorney at Law.

Oh, and he could just imagine how that would go. Sure, Marc was making nice. For Duo's sake. Oh, he was a good old boy, Marky, the kind of guy who'd started out an idealist, probably, and come up one day on the wrong side of the criminal underworld-- the church-going Sunday school teacher who turned out to be a coke dealer, maybe, and Addison had been shocked right the hell out of his Chinos. You didn't make it to junior partner at a firm like Strawn and Virbach Legal without getting your feet dirty. But maybe Addison had managed to stop himself at just the muddy shoes. He seemed genuine. He seemed-- nice. No obvious self-serving agenda, and it was a rare lawyer who'd do what Addison had done, commit the personal economy Addison had to get Duo off. Career-making, maybe, but a business-is-business lawyer would've dropped them the moment that trial was over, and Addison was still around offering hand-outs and asking to be--

Friends.

But he couldn't do it. Really, a lawyer? Trowa had made a career of keeping out of a court room. Giving his phone number to one seemed like tossing in the towel.

Which he was. If Une came through for him, anyway.

If Duo said yes.

Maybe he should have bought a couple extra bouquets.

He divided the rest of his day between the gym and the gun range. He ran through his most intense routines at each, pushing himself toward physical reaches he didn't usually need in the casual life. He stepped in on a boxing class and spent a few hours beating up innocent gym bunnies in the practise ring. He stopped when he split a knuckle on a bleach-blond's front teeth, and quietly excused himself before security could ask him to go. The gun range went a little better; no-one bothered you if you were obviously working something out with yourself. Safer that way, when it came to guns. He emptied three boxes of shells on the silhouette range. He felt marginally better for the experience.

He still got home with time to kill, so he positioned the flowers on the table and actually started his laundry. Well, he moved it from his duffle to the hamper, anyway. Duo did the laundry because Trowa always put it on hot water, and Duo had ecological issues with the hot water cycle. He unpacked the rest of his shit, including his copies of Osmond's autopsy and IDs for later study.

Flowers down. Laundry down. He could probably stand to bathe before Duo got in. Duo would cook. They would eat. Trowa would look up over the baked tofu and say something like how'd your day go, any news, any olds; I was thinking we could get hitched this weekend, if you're up for it.

Yeah. Except for the fact that his mouth went dry just imagining it, that was good to go.

Duo came banging in around six twenty. Trowa had devolved to just standing in front of the open fridge, wishing it to produce something non-soy. He heard the door slam into the stopper, swallowed a moment of something that might possibly have been fear, and called out, "Honey, I'm home."

Duo missed the flowers. He had his head turned away coming in, eyes on the mail Trowa had forgot to pick up. His keys went into his pocket, not onto the table. Then Duo stopped short, staring into the kitchen at him.

"Hi,” Duo said. Oh, he looked good. Even in that drab grey suit. Trowa was hard just for looking at him. The bruise on his cheek was gone except for a faint green sheen, and his shoulders were rigid and straight, his legs spread evenly and knees locked. He looked edgy, uptight. Trowa loved it.

But then Duo said, “I'm sorry. I have to go back out. There's a steak in the freezer though, if you're up to grilling it."

Trowa's evening plans evaporated. "It's cool,” he said flatly. Duo's mouth twitched down. He tried to inject something more resembling feeling into the next words. “You look tired. Break in the case?"

"Maybe," Duo said.

Trowa flipped the frigerator door closed. Duo was stiffer the closer he got, each step, so he made a determined effort to keep his body language loose, no sudden moves. He smoothed his hands over Duo's shoulders and then under the lapels of the coat, sliding it off Duo's arms. "Wanna talk about it?" he asked. He bent and gave Duo a quick, hard kiss. "Hi."

Duo exhaled deeply. He gripped Trowa close by fists in his shirt, and pulled him back down. Their mouths mashed, and then Duo's tongue was twisting around his. Duo pressed him back against the wall by the kitchen arch, slipping his hand under cotton to find skin, spreading his fingers over Trowa's stomach, sternum, his pecs. Trowa grinned against Duo's lips. "Missed you like crazy," he whispered. He wound his arms around Duo's neck.

Duo pushed their hips together, and then rested against him. “Missed you too.” He took a loose fist of Trowa's belt. His breath was hot on Trowa's collar.

Trowa squeezed a warm handful of firm ass. "How much time have we got?"

"Zilch. I have to pick Marquez up." Worse words. Trowa thunked his head back on the drywall. Duo stepped away in pieces, then came back again, leaning on him. "How was the job?"

Trowa rubbed Duo's neck gently. He flashed his best, most believable smile. "Typical,” he lied. “We can talk about it all when you get home for the night."

"Sorry. I didn't know you were getting in tonight. I wouldn't have scheduled for now otherwise." Duo nipped his chin, touched their cheeks together. “You smell good. You were at the range.”

"Baby, relax. I'll be here. Okay?" He held Duo in place for a third kiss. "If it'd make you feel better I could follow and stake you out. Something for the journal."

"No." Unexpectedly quick, and kind of harsh. Duo was out of his physical space in two jiffs, then. "Not funny."

"Come on,” Trowa tried. “It's a little cute."

"Not tonight, it's not." There went the mood. Duo pulled off his tie with two hard yanks and tossed it onto the kitchen table. He pulled the guava juice out of the fridge and drank straight from the bottle. He faced away from Trowa to do it.

Trowa truly hadn't factored in the possibility of Duo being in an actual mood. Attitude, he always counted on, but this was darker and deeper, and it had all the potential for ugly of a tropical storm. "Sorry, baby," he said, mild as the juice. He stayed where he was, crossed his arms until he thought better of it, and then just stuffed them into his pockets. "Should I be worried?"

Duo's eyes slid south of his. "Sorry. Just don't follow me tonight."

"I was joking. Okay? Trying to keep things light."

"Sorry."

Maybe he should follow Duo. The hell was up that Duo needed to see that jerk from his job after work hours anyway?

"Oh,” Duo said. “I almost forgot. Quatre's in town. You should try to see him while he's here."

Busted. Confess and be damned, or lie and be found out later. Duo was in no mood for games, obviously.

He waited long enough deciding that Duo got ahead of him. The juice went back in the box and Duo went in the direction of their bedroom. Trowa followed more slowly. "He came in on Saturday,” Duo called back. “We saw an apartment together. He says it's the one."

"He doesn't live with us,” Trowa said. “He doesn't get a vote. We're buying a house."

Duo was shirtless, spritzing his shirt with Febreze. "It's actually kind of... I mean, it's got all the things we agreed we didn't want, and none of the stuff we said we did, but it's not bad, actually."

"We're buying a house. Fuck Quatre for meddling in this."

Duo pulled the shirt back on, and got a new tie from the closet. "Whatever. Fine."

"You wanted a house, baby."

"I know what I said." He checked himself in the bureau mirror, tightening the braid without taking it out. He rewound the elastic, buttoned himself to completion, and said, “I just think maybe we shouldn't limit our options so early on.”

Well, that had all the earmarks of a weekend with everyone's favourite busy-body. Quat sure hadn't mentioned any of this when he was playing marriage counselor. "What other decisions did Quatre make for us?"

"Oh, get off the high horse. Quat was there because you weren't." That stopped them both. Duo's face was blank with shock at himself. "I'm sorry. That wasn't what I meant."

"Yeah, I think it was."

"No, fuck, it wasn't. You physically weren't here, is what the fuck I meant. I have to go."

"Yeah. Go ahead. I'll be here. Be safe." It took all the control he had to get that out in choppy bursts. Duo turned and looked at him, then, for a full minute almost. Just looking.

And then just leaving.

**

Noin answered the door in blue jeans, a flannel shirt, and red eyes. Duo dropped his to his feet.

“Ma'am,” Marquez said crisply. “Thank you for meeting with us this evening.”

The pause was long enough Duo risked a peek. Noin was waiting on him. When she had his gaze, she said, "I'm sorry, Detective. What I have to say is for Detective Maxwell alone."

Marquez rocked on his heels. “Of course,” he said, a beat off natural. “I'll wait in the hall.” He ducked his head in something not quite a bow. Noin accepted it with a stiff nod in return. She left her door open and went in.

It was a nice enough apartment, for a company rental. There were fresh flowers on the round little kitchenette table, lilacs and baby's breath. She had a half-eaten dinner on the counter, a microwavable pasta meal that smelled heavy on the garlic. The only other decoration was the stack of boxed files on the couch and surrounding floor. “Guess business is booming,” Duo said.

“I'd like to get this over with.” She picked up a little wooden casket on the table. The lid clicked as she set it carefully aside. She removed a single white envelope; she handled it like a fragile relic, a sacred keepsake. Her dark hair covered her eyes.

“It was an apology,” she said. “For not cutting me off when we were fourteen. I loved him. From the first instant I saw him. I was never sure if he knew... It was one of the things we didn't talk about, until almost the end. He was sorry... for keeping me on his leash, he said, when he knew all along that all he could offer was friendship, and even that was only a burden.” She thrust out the envelope. “You won't find what you're looking for in that.”

“Thank you.” It didn't explode in his hand, or spray him with acid. Somehow he'd expected it would, just on the strength of the hate Noin had to be holding in just now. Himself, holding this now--

Her voice on the phone, that recorded message sent a month after it had happened. The way she'd sounded. There was an accident. He's dead. Duo had thought-- accident, hell. Maybe it was. There just hadn't been a hell of a lot of reason for hope.

He opened it and read.

_Noin,_

_You had nothing to do with this-- nor could have stopped me. My decision totally._

_Good-bye. No hand-shake to endure._

_Z_

Master of brevity. An incisive kind of cut, clinical and cruelly indifferent to the bleed, that was Zechs all over. Maybe Noin found some kind of comfort in it, but Duo knew what it was meant to do. That had been one last act of butchery, and Zechs hadn't given a fuck about the damage he was leaving behind him. He never had. Hell of a choice for his last words.

Duo put the note back in the envelope. “I'm sorry,” he said, and cleared his throat to say it again so she could hear him. “You were right. I shouldn't have asked to see it.”

“No, you shouldn't have. I suppose I understand it, though.” She touched the gold chain at her throat, the tiny cross in the hollow between her collarbones. “I-- there's another one.”

“Another what.” He didn't feel anything, except for a little shame growing in the squirmy part of his gut. It was like voyeurism, being here. Witnessing her at all. He hadn't been in a room with her even since that night at the shuttle port. She hadn't expected him there, Zechs hadn't bothered or even remembered to warn her Duo had said yes. Yes, and then there was Noin at the port, staring at him like he'd just ripped her open, just by standing there.

Get you tea before we board? Zechs had asked. Yeah, Duo had said, to get away from Noin looking at him like that, because he hadn't realised she'd be there. Just like Zechs. Damn right he'd kept her on a leash, rubbing her face in every new humiliation just to test her, just to see if he could make her leave. God knew why a woman as strong as she was hadn't given up when there was time to-- just walk away. Zechs had turned to him from the kiosk with that paper cup full of stupid gourmet tea, and Noin was staring daggers into his back--

I can't, he said. I can't go with you.

Noin took another envelope from that casket. She held it out, arms-length. "I should have given it to you right away, but I hated the idea of sharing one more piece of him with you."

Envelope. Same envelope as the one he was already holding. His name on the front. Zechs' handwriting.

His throat was froggy. “You kept that.”

“I convinced myself you wouldn't want to read it. You never seemed to care much that he'd died.” Now she met his eyes, daring him to call her a liar, a bitch. "There's no evidence in that note. Not mine, anyway. If you're finished with it, may I have it back?"

He put it on the counter. She took it back, great care not to rush. Tucked it back in the box to live forever. Duo didn't stay to watch the rest of the ritual. He didn't stop moving until he was out of her apartment, on the other side of that door. Other side of the door, and her locked away behind it.

Marquez looked up from inspecting a mould-covered vent. “That was fast,” he commented. "Get what you need?"

There was a little stale breeze from somewhere, in the spot he stood. It felt good on the sweat on his forehead. He wiped it away with the back of his hand.

“Maxwell?”

"I have this piece of paper. I need to, uh, read it first.” His tongue was thick, didn't want to work right. “Gimme a minute?"

Marquez gave an odd sharp nod. "I need the mens' room. Meet you in the lobby." He made a quick turn on his heel, and off he went, making pace down the hall toward the lift.

Duo put his shoulder blades to the ugly wallpaper. He was numb, kind of numb all over, like being in a vacuum. Like being in a vacuum and knowing all of Space was out there, looking for a way to get in.

He ripped through the ten-year old glue, tore open the edge and shook the letter out. Not a single folded sheet, like Noin's. A letter. Full letter. Blurry handwriting, though, not like hers, blurry... He blinked, and it resolved.

Marquez was where he'd promised to be, when Duo got down there. Standing outside the public john, wiping his wet hands on his trousers. Duo met him halfway across the lobby, and offered him the note.

Marquez looked at it, then up to Duo's face. He didn't take it. He said, "If it's private, I don't need to intrude."

Duo licked dry lips. He lowered his hand.

"Any confirmation? One way or the other?"

"No."

"What's your gut telling you?"

"When I figure it out, I'll let you know."

"Fair enough." Marquez dried his hands again, his mouth screwed to the side like he was thinking uncomfortable thoughts. "It's been a long day."

"Yeah. Thanks for doing this off-hours."

"We're cops. There is no off-hours. Buy you a beer?"

That was a jump. Good jump, bad jump, he wasn't sure-- good, well, that Marquez would-- reach out, or whatever, although that couldn't be it, really, because in Duo's experience men as straight as Marquez were more likely to run the other direction if they sensed a teary moment between male companions on the horizon. But there was Trowa at home-- who probably also would develop an allergy to any mushy comfort scenarios, after the way Duo had left it earlier-- Jesus, if an hour with Marquez at a bar established any kind of peace between them, that would have to be worth it, wouldn't it?

"Uh, yeah,” he said. “Okay. Thanks."

"If you've got someplace to be, I'll take a rain-check." Marquez scratched his ear. "It's kind of last minute,” he mumbled. “I know."

"No, it's cool. I'd, uh-- I'm not going to turn down an opportunity to better our working relationship."

Marquez actually snorted. "That's blunt, Maxwell." But he was smiling a little, and that seemed a good sign. "But hey, next time we do a stunt like this, I'm driving. You're a shit driver.”

"I am not," Duo grumbled. They nodded at the doorman as they passed, and he buzzed them out with a sleepy wave. "You and my boyfriend."

"It's a little too early on for girl-talk, okay?"

Oh, good. At least he didn't have to worry Marquez had been replaced by a pod man. "Got it. No gay shit."

"Not this week."

 

**

 

“Did you schedule tomorrow with Temple?” Quatre asked.

“He takes too much of your time.” Wufei thumbed through the next day's agenda on his PDA. “You'll be up all night with him again.”

“Best bring in some coffee, then. See if you can find that place I like, the one that delivers when I'm in town.”

“Linda's? I'll call.”

“The Sumatra roast.” Quatre turned the page he was reading, then dropped it back into his folder. “Move the conference call to six tomorrow morning. We'll get that out of the way. Justice Department are going to be the death of me. I can't bloody do anything about Skalski case.”

“Foreign Ministry have jurisdiction over Preventers. Just be glad they're only asking for mediation.”

“If I go anywhere near the trial I'll be testifying at it next. Or worse, being sued for intervention.” Quatre made a note in the margin. “Usual signal.”

“Nose rub or chewing the pencil?”

“Or pulling my hair out. If they start to talk about pre-trial conferences again get me out of there.” Quatre pulled off his glasses and tossed them to the table.

“Why has Temple been dancing around the point? If you're going to run for President, there's already a group behind Temple. They've got to be pushing. It could take a year to raise the money, another to campaign--”

“I haven't said yes yet. Relena and I agreed we'd wait until we could talk about it together.”

“I thought it was decided,” Wufei said slowly. “You've been acting like--”

“It's not a conversation I've been ready to have.” Quatre pushed his chair back. “Give me a minute to go the loo. I'll be right back.”

Wufei's PDA buzzed. He held out a hand to stop Quatre's progress to the door. “It's the family number.” He switched it to the receive function, and put it to his ear. “Chang.”

A young voice answered, a boy. _"I need to talk to my dad,"_ it said.

Same accent, and it was the secure listing, so it had to be one of the nephews. "I'm sorry?" he asked. "Who is this?"

_“I need to talk to my dad!”_

“Give me that.” Quatre thrust out a hand for the PDA. “Wufei, give me that.”

Bewildered by the urgency, he handed it over. Quatre pressed it to his ear, ducking Wufei's raised eyebrows by turning away. "Kira?" Quatre said.

Ah. Yes, one of the nephews. There were more than forty of those. The Winner clan was prolific. A dozen of them regularly called for money; there were a few who weren't totally useless, who called for advice or family news. Kira was one of the younger ones; there were many who were considerably older than Quatre himself.

"What's wrong, dearest?” Quatre asked the phone. “You sound upset."

Ah. Quatre was in rescue mode again. Wufei shucked his own glasses and polished them on his shirt tail. Where would they be rushing off to next? Back to L4, to calm whatever new crisis could only be solved by the patriarch. And then would they be back to Earth, to finally see Trowa?

"Visit?” Quatre sneaked a glance at Wufei. “Yes, of course-- I'm on Earth, though. Is it something wrong? Do you want me to come back to L4? No, I know you're not twelve anymore." Quatre rubbed his mouth. "Kira, where are you? Are you with your parents?"

Wufei gestured a finger at the door, to indicate he'd be willing to step out. Quatre shook his head, but turned away again, his shoulders oddly hunched. "I can call your father and tell him you want to come. We'll set up a ticket. Time off school. No, it doesn't have to be so complicated, but you're a young man now. Young men have to consider their own safety, and how their parents are going to feel when they turn up missing."

This was a new attitude. Many members of Quatre's large family were practically strangers; Wufei, who'd grown up in a similar warren of relations, understood exactly the bonds of obligation and the very real inability to connect with everyone who bore the same name simply because they shared blood. Quatre handled it well, usually, but this was oddly personal. This Kira hadn't called since Wufei had taken over managing Quatre's schedule. He couldn't remember which of the sisters was the mother. It wasn't one of Iraia's three, though-- they were some of the worst offenders when it came to demands on Quatre's time, and Wufei had been very firm laying out new boundaries for them. This might require the same finesse.

Quatre leant an arm on the wall, PDA between shoulder and ear. "I'll ask them. They'll say yes to me. Kira, please tell me what's wrong."

He wasn't expressly trying to eavesdrop, but the phone reception was set to a high volume-- he often had to answer calls in crowded rooms. He very clearly heard three words-- _divorce_ , and _real father_.

The pieces didn't come together as quickly as they ought to have. He had to puzzle at it, this child calling so suddenly, so intent on some frantic visit, demanding time face-to-face with--

He inhaled deeply. Ah.

Quatre's shoulders slipped to the limpness of surrender. "All right. We'll get you on a flight. We'll talk about it. When you get here. It will be all right, Kira. We'll figure out what to do. I promise."

Wufei examined the rough skin around his fingernails. He waited for the click of the PDA being turned off, the clatter of it being carefully returned to the desk between them. Quatre stood staring down at it, two fingers smoothing over his tie in slow strokes.

Wufei broke the silence. "Is this a good idea, Quatre?"

The other man stirred. "No,” he said, “I'm quite convinced it's the worst possible thing I could do."

Easily. It would be political, and personal, suicide. "Maybe you should consider-- reconsider--"

"What else could I do? He's my son." It hung there, too jagged and abrupt. Quatre was staring at him, now. "He's my son," Quatre said.

It was an odd thing, that Quatre could be such a liar when it served him. It never seemed worthy of him, of who he should have been.

"So I gathered.” Wufei swallowed the last of the water in his glass, and refilled for them both. He pushed the second tumbler toward Quatre. “You were very young."

"Fifteen and eleven months, to be exact." Quatre sank back into his chair. "My sister Jessamin raised him. Kira thinks they're divorcing. I haven't spoken to them in-- I don't know-- they didn't say they were having troubles."

Fifteen. That explained a certain amount of the situation. He had had his own brief, painful marriage, younger even than that. He'd been so unequipped for it, for her. The expectations and-- needs; and that had been without the added burden of a child. Wufei exhaled to clear his throat of momentary tightness.

"He said it so easily... Dad."

"More difficult to hear than it was for him to say."

"No-- he wasn't supposed to know. It was a sealed adoption. My sister agreed, Kira was never to know. But he said it the same way he used to say Uncle. He's known. Somehow."

"If his parents have been fighting, it may have come up."

"What an awful way to learn."

"Do you regret not telling him?"

Quatre was leaning on his fist. He didn't answer immediately. Wufei, looking at him, saw the sheen grow over Quatre's eyes, darken them to a liquid ozone. "Every minute since he was born."

Wufei picked his words with care. "And the mother?"

Quatre wiped his eyes. "She never wanted to be a part of his life. She didn't even want to name him. Hold him." Quatre was silent, his fingernails digging holes into the upholstery of his chair. “I'd let himself-- be convinced-- adoption was the right thing. For Kira too. I would visit them--- when he was little-- sometimes I almost believed he really was my nephew. So much time passed. It became a fact, not a secret.”

"Who is his mother?"

He thought for a moment Quatre would resist answering. But it wasn't the same resistance he'd been facing from that front for four months. This was new. No-- this was old, and-- normal. The relationship they'd had before Wufei's truth had been known. It was a strange thing to equalise them. But it did.

Quatre wet his lips. "Dorothy Catalonia."

He inhaled sharply, before he could think to hide such a reaction. Quatre flinched a little. Yet Wufei was somehow unsurprised. It explained too much about her lingering presence in his life-- even Quatre was not so generous as to invite a woman who'd nearly killed him into authority and even affection in his life-- no. Not affection. There had never been any warmth there, from either of them-- in fact Wufei had once described it as wariness. He'd attributed it then to some private suspicion he'd thought Quatre still harboured about her. A child between them... and a decision he did not doubt had been made by Dorothy for both of them. To protect Quatre from his own mistake. And to take the sacrifice out of his hands. That explained Quatre's guarded attitude toward her, his decades-long silence on her unswerving loyalty to his business, his career, and to him.

Yes, it explained quite a lot. He was a little appalled.

Oh, and the Quatre of fifteen and eleven months-- yes, he could remember that as clear as if it were the same boy sitting in front of him. Dorothy must have eaten him alive.

Quatre looked back at him in quiet for a long time, fidgeting fingers slowly mussing his hair. "I thought Trowa was dead," he said, in something just over a whisper. "I thought I'd killed him. I just-- was weak."

"You don't owe anyone an explanation," Wufei replied softly.

"Kira." And then Quatre laughed, a short airless thing very expressive of dawning terror.

"Aside from Kira, yes." Wufei pushed the water at him again. "What will you do?"

"I don't know. I don't know." Quatre covered his mouth. "Relena."

Not surprising Quatre would only now consider that ramification. They weren't yet married. Maybe now they would never be. Women stronger than Relena Peacecraft might find their desire cooled by such a revelation. She was just spoilt enough to not listen willingly to something that would shake her world so much-- and just spoilt enough that she might not want to share Quatre with a bastard teenaged son and a woman who'd been a rival already in many ways. But she was important to Quatre. It would pain him, if she rejected him now. "She will find this confusing," he said slowly.

"Yes, that's assured. Wufei..." Quatre looked up at him wretchedly. "I need your help."

"Of course." He offered it immediately, perhaps automatically. Quatre's expression didn't alter with relief or even understanding, though, and he had to check himself to be certain he'd said the right thing. Not quite. He did know what Quatre wanted, needed to hear from him.

“Yes,” he said. "We're friends."

 

**

 

It wasn't the single most awkward moment he'd ever spent in a bar, but it ranked.

He had no frame of reference, was the problem. He'd been through dozens of co-workers and certainly there'd been a few problems in the bunch, but by and large Duo was used to relying on his natural charms to wear people down.

Marquez didn't seem to have or even recognise natural charms, though. Even Heero hadn't been so prickly, back then. If anything, Duo had instantly fallen for that eyebrow-contorting scowl-- Heero hadn't been joyless, he'd just been-- lonely. It had been cute. Endearing.

Marquez was not endearing.

And after one beer he was displaying a worrisome tendency to drone. He'd been regaling Duo with the cumulative total of his experience in Cold Case. Each story began, “The victim was” and proceeded to “The suspects were” and ended with “Solved it, of course.” Duo went fast through his martini and ordered a second before he thought better of it. Gin was probably not going to improve his night. He could actually feel the letter inside his coat, like it was burning his skin. Not a fucking mystery why Noin would've kept it from him. She'd never outright blamed him for Zechs, but she'd been bitter jealous about it and nothing Duo could have said would have made her see how completely unhealthy it had been.

No, not unhealthy. Unhealthy was Johnny, who wanted Duo to stay in a itty bitty box full of puppy dogs and roses. Unhealthy was Scotte Lee, who'd thought his fist was the appropriate vehicle for saying I love you. Zechs had been three kinds of derailed, and there'd been a very dedicated effort on both their parts to find just how low they could sink as two human beings intent on destroying each other with their dicks. Even without the drugs they'd probably have been deadly to each other. Noin knew that. Noin had seen it for herself, for Chrissakes. He got bitter. He understood being bitter about it, and he knew she'd been left with cleaning Zechs up because Duo had walked, but it had been her choice. Zechs had done anything a dark and imaginative mind could do to drive her off, and she'd stayed.

No. He got it. People stayed. And it was to their credit when they did, because most the time it ruined you to try it, but there was still something noble in the trying.

“Maxwell?”

“Yeah,” Duo said, swimming up and tongue already tripping to stall until he could figure out whatever Marquez had been blathering about then, but it was just the waitress with their nacho platter. Duo moved his elbows so she could set it on the bar between them.

“Thanks, honey,” she said, tossing him a wink. But it wasn't Duo she managed to slither all over, giving Marquez a boob brush down the shoulder as she stepped back from their stools. There was an extra sashay in her step as she headed back to the kitchen. Why not? Duo had the boy-next-door thing, but Marquez was dark and broody. Probably if he never opened his mouth, she'd never find out what a snooze he actually was.

"So, like... great tits on her," Duo said.

Marquez raised an eyebrow. Perfect arch. He probably practised it. "She's not your type."

"The tits sort of preclude that, yeah. Oh, there I go, spitting up the gay stuff."

"I'm not a bigot," Marquez said. "I just don't like thinking about tossed salads and lube."

Duo choked on his drink. He wiped his mouth carefully. “Well, ditto. Not before nachos, anyway.” He dug a chip from the middle out, soggy with sour cream and greasy cheddar. "I pulled a ho, once."

"Gee, there's a challenge." Marquez took from the edge, moving a hefty chunk onto the extra plates the girl had brought. "I don't have any similar confessions, I'm afraid."

"You could, if you go back to that club. That guy at the bar was way into you."

"Which one?" Marquez got a perfectly crisp crunch when he bit in. "Your snitch?"

"Do we need to talk about that?"

"Not sure. Do we?"

Duo imagined Marquez developing a sudden case of bullet-in-the-ass. It helped.

“Look,” the man said then. "None of us gets through life without doing some things he'd be uncomfortable confessing. I get that. I'm not in the habit of bagging witnesses, though. So when you see him again, let him down easy for me, okay?"

"Yeah, I'll ask for your number back." Duo licked his thumb clean and wiped it on his knee. "You might want to double-check your Facebook wall, though."

Score. Duo suppressed a smirk. Marquez didn't know whether or not to believe that one. His hand hovered over the nachos without moving for several seconds. "I'll freaking kill you."

"Hey, you shoulda laid down ground rules." That took the joke just about far enough. Marquez passed it off with an uneasy laugh. Duo kept his eyes on the food, picking olives out of the mess of refried beans. He'd missed dinner and Trowa-- Trowa wouldn't be cooking, not if there was beer and pizza, so if he wanted anything it was going to be this, and hoping he could sleep on top of all the grease. Or the fight they'd been working on having before he'd run out of there. He really couldn't stop himself, sometimes. He really had wanted to just make it a good home-coming so they could kiss and fuck and Trowa could have his space to decompress. He earned it, even if Duo still didn't know what all he'd been out there doing. Shouldn't have brought up the apartment. Or Quatre. God, he could really fuck up, when he put his mind to it. All he ever had to do was open his freaking mouth.

“You get a pension or anything from Preventers?” Marquez asked. Eventually. Filling up the silence with the first awkward, least awkward questions. Couldn't ask him about a wife, couldn't ask him about where'd he'd come from or what school he'd gone to. They'd be on to weekend golfing next, and then Duo might shoot himself in the ass, if it would get him home. He didn't want to go home. He didn't want to stay. His chest was tight and it was getting hard to breathe.

“No pension,” he said, and made himself take a deep one through the nose, fill up both lungs until the rush hit the brain. “They opted not to let me carry my benefits to the new job.”

“So what, you lost how many years of service?” Marquez whistled. “That's pretty shitty.”

Ten years of shitty. A third of his life shitty. So he had thirty more he had to make it now, to get anything on the other end of retirement. He'd be sixty and still trying to jump rooftops after perps. Sixty and still trying to infiltrate sex clubs with a thirty year old partner who still wouldn't respect him, probably.

"I remember reading about you a few times. After the war.” Marquez finished his beer and pushed the glass away, a last wash of foam sinking down the sides. “All of you guys. I wondered if things would ever get normal for you. I guess it shouldn't be any less possible for you than anyone who fought in that war."

"Except for the part about being in the papers, I guess."

"Except for that, yeah." Mutual pause as they absorbed how little that actually settled. "Want kids?"

"Fuck, no."

Marquez managed another of those stilted laughs. "Me too."

"I'd be horrible. I don't really like kids. Kind of awful thing to say. Don't know what to do or how to talk to them--" He swirled his martini. He wanted to finish it, which meant he shouldn't. "Never thought of myself as a kid when I was one, even."

"No?"

"Know-it-all. Had a fast pair of legs and a smart mouth and never needed much more, really."

"Most teenagers would say that."

He drank it to the ice. It left a numb kind of burn along his jaw. "I was six."

"War orphans had it rough."

Oh, war orphans now. Great progression. "We had all the food we could steal and I slept safe every night, in jail or out of it, until the Feddies showed up. I didn't know it was rough. Hell, I might not even be an orphan. I thought about it, once, applying to that DNA database. There may actually be someone looking for their kid."

"What stops you?"

That brought him up short. He swallowed his ice, too, just for the last taste of alcohol on it. "Only thing I think of that's worse than not ever knowing what happened to your child is finding out he started a war that got hundreds of thousands of people killed."

"A lot of water under the bridge.” Duo didn't want to look at the man. Their waitress was passing by behind the bar, and she paused in front of them. Duo almost asked for a new drink. Almost. He shook his head, though, and off she went, like a phantom floating past. “People forgive," Marquez said.

Right. Duo had heard that one, too. "I couldn't do it. I always get this picture of some tiny little lady in a white apron and she just looks at me." He scratched his nose. "Well, I think. Done for the night, with that note."

Just like that and they were done, actually. Marquez was probably relieved to be out of it. He asked, "Need a cab?" and was sliding off his stool before the last word got out.

"No, I'm fine." Duo pulled out his wallet. Marquez beat him to it, tossing down a couple twenties for the nachos and drinks. Duo left an extra ten for tip. He'd have to ask Trowa to pass him some cash. Between bribes, drinks, car repair-- face repair-- murder trials-- he was low in the bank. That was humiliating. Figured.

"About Noin," Duo said. Surprised both of them. He sure hadn't intended on opening his yapper. What the hell did she even deserve from him? They were even. She'd kept the letter from him for whatever crazy girl reason she'd had, and he'd taken nine years to ask for it, and probably if she knew it could be ruining his second career before he'd even started it, she'd be pleased anyway.

Not particularly fair. What the hell was, though?

"What about her?" Marquez said. He made eyes at the waitress where she was over at someone else's table. Tight smile.

Fuck it. "What you said before, about keeping this off the record for the moment. I'd rather just call today a-- like a fishing expedition. Keep her name out of it."

That got him full attention again. "No reason to put it in the report at all. She didn't provide anything informative."

"Yeah. My thoughts." He wiped his hands dry on his trousers. "And about Zechs."

Marquez shrugged at him. "We still have no hard evidence he was involved."

He was two drinks in, not as fuzzy around the edges as he wanted to be. The letter in his pocket felt like a timer bomb. Would he ever feel it? He'd been walking away from it for nine years.

"No,” he said. “No evidence at all."

 

**

 

This time coming in, Duo saw the tulips.

Trowa was sprawled on the couch with his pants open, watching the pundit shows in the dark. The charm was a little off the rose-- Duo was usually more thorn than petal anyway, but he looked positively droopy now. Whatever had happened in three hours with that guy from work apparently involved being strung up by the thumbs. It made Trowa glad he hadn't gone with his first instinct-- smoking up the apartment with the steak and re-distributing his smelly laundry where Duo would trip on it.

“Hey,” he said.

Duo's finger lingered on one of the yellow bulbs. His eyes came up to Trowa. He dropped his keys next to the flowers, and did something Trowa had never seen him do, ever. He took off his jacket and dropped it to the floor.

Trowa sat up straight for that. Duo came walking toward him, shoes silent on the carpet. Duo stepped neatly around the coffee table, put his hand on Trowa's cheek, and bent to kiss him. Just before their lips connected, he said, "I'm sorry."

Trowa felt an actual flutter. "Me too." He covered Duo's hand on his skin. Duo wove their fingers together, and kissed his forehead.

"It was a shit day,” he said. “I took it out on you. Thanks for being here to do that for me."

"Sorry I wasn't here to look at that apartment." Trowa tugged Duo near by the thighs, sliding his hands around to cup Duo's ass. "There's food in the kitchen. Bowtie pasta with spinach. Tomato and avocado salad a lá Barton."

Duo smiled. "I can smell it. Thank you." Trowa kissed his belly through his shirt, and Duo cradled his head there. "I think I might shower first, okay?"

"Sure." He squeezed Duo's buttcheeks, then just hooked his fingers through Duo's belt loops. "Want help washing your back?"

"Sounds good." Small smile. "Gimme a minute. Settle some ghosts, and all."

"Give me a yell when you're ready."

Duo emptied his pockets onto the coffee table, wallet and spare change and a folded letter. Trowa noticed, because he assumed he was meant to-- Duo had strict rules about where pocket crap went, and it wasn't the living room. He summoned a smile of his own as Duo nodded at him, and then he was alone again, with nothing but the big fat elephant of a clue to whatever was wrong with Duo.

Well, Trowa hadn't worked the elephant show at the circus for nothing.

He didn't recognise the handwriting, but that didn't mean anything. The envelope was already slit, and the letter hadn't been stuffed in neatly. It had new crinkles alongside the original trifold. Trowa smoothed it out and held it up to catch a bit of light from the kitchen window.

_Letting you go was the best and worst thing I ever did. I suppose everything about us fits under that description, though._

_I know you never accepted that what we had was more than sexual. I was never in any doubt, however. You were the first man who saw me as another man, not an outsider-- and despite your choicer insults, I know you never truly saw me as just another 'Ozzie' or even as the man who tried to destroy the Earth in the name of colonial independence. I never verbalised it, but you were more than just a Gundam Pilot in my eyes. You were many, many things, almost all of them frustrating. I never could get that through to you. That was frustrating, too._

_I wish I could do something for you. I've written a will. Noin knows where it is. You're in it, for whatever it's worth. No money-- I know you wouldn't accept it. Please accept the only other things I have to give-- just things that could make your life easier. The car is yours. So is the art. Sell it if you don't want it, give it away-- it doesn't matter. Please take the clothes. It's all still in the apartment. Don't disdain them just because I bought them for you. You know you could use them._

_There's a kid at the club I was seeing. Kelby. You know him. Could you check on him from time to time? Help him if he needs it. He's another of my bad decisions, and he deserved better._

_Stay clean. You have the determination. I know you'll succeed. It's your most admirable quality._

It was signed Zechs Merquise.

The thing about Duo and Duo's history was that he never let anything go. The problem with the therapy and the confessions and the psychic yoga was that it kept everything fresh, kept everything right in the forebrain where it could be hashed and rehashed. It stopped Duo from moving on and it kept the genuinely painful things from healing ever. Duo knew that and put himself through it anyway, which meant he put Trowa through it too, even if half the time Trowa didn't know what particular bug was up Duo's bung. Of course, this one had a name. It at least explained the taste of liquor on Duo's lips.

Weird that this letter would just turn up suddenly. No date, but since no-one had heard of Merquise in-- what, ten years? The date kind of set itself. That was one hell of a delayed reaction.

They probably wouldn't be able to afford a house, if Duo got himself a new shrink over this. Maybe he'd better take Addison up on the job offer after all.

Meanwhile, Duo had never called him to share the water, so Trowa invited himself along. He ditched his pants on the way back to their bedroom and tossed his shirt at the foot of the bed. The door was open. Trowa nudged it wider and went in. “Duo?”

Said boyfriend was standing at the double sink next to their steaming shower, head down. Duo was naked, the bright gold light painting streaks on his back, shadows on his hips and flanks. Trowa traced the braid down the length of his spine, leaning slow and sensual against Duo until his cotton boxers were the only thing separating skin from skin. He smoothed his hands up Duo's chest, plucking small brown nipples until they were hard. He pressed their hips together.

“Let's wash,” he whispered.

Duo was hotter for it than normal, ignoring the usual foreplay; his hands were everywhere, but it was random, undirected. Trowa was up in flames the very first brush of Duo's palm to his balls. It was barely a blink before he was face-first against the tile with Duo inside him. The soap lather lube stung just a little, but it smelled like cedar, vanilla. Sex. Duo left a series of bites around his shoulder and upper arm, hard enough to hurt just a little. It was erotic. Normally they blitzed through sex, racing for the finish line-- this was no different, but it was, somehow. Like he was feeling it _everywhere_. Maybe it was because of the day they'd both had-- because he'd been thinking about this from the moment he'd left on one more bad job and because the job had been what the job had been-- because he was leaving behind him a trail of people today, Quatre and Heero and Une even, a whole lifetime of people who'd defined-- and everyone one of them had led him back to this man, who'd decided at some obscure moment the way Duo always did that he was going to love Trowa Barton, whether he was ready for it or not.

He wound his arm back around Duo's head, fisted his hand in the base of the braid. The spray was too hot, he was too hot all over, but it was building up to an explosion and it felt so good he could've drowned in it. "Come on, baby. I'm ready."

Pause just long enough for a single inhale. Duo dropped the hand that was jerking him off and put it on his hip instead. Trowa replaced it with his own, but he barely split his concentration for it. Duo fucked him, coming at him so hard he had to brace himself on the wet tile, turn his head aside so the spray hit him on the cheek and not the eyes. It didn't take long, not at that speed. He didn't ask Duo to come with him; he just let it overtake him, no effort to hold it back, and it left him gasping and hollow and weak-kneed. Duo was there to hold him up, still inside him, in-out, in-out-- just that much more, and then he was still, his open mouth pressed to Trowa's shoulder blade.

Trowa was the one who initiated the separation, just because it was starting to edge into unpleasant, and he wasn't ready to give up the good feeling yet. Duo stepped away when he felt Trowa move, but Trowa caught him back with an arm around his neck, pulling him in close so they could wrap around each other, limbs falling sluggishly into place. He kissed the top of Duo's head, all the tangled slick hair, and rested his chin there.

"You know what's weird?" Duo whispered against his chest.

"You mean besides all the fake bacon we have?"

Duo laughed a little. He stepped away again, rolling his shoulders and head. He gave Trowa a flip little slap on the ass. "Sometimes when you come back,” he said, “I actually forget what it's like when you're gone."

 

 

 

They ate his pasta and salad in bed, and left the bowls on the floor to worry about in the morning. They fooled around again, not serious about taking it anywhere, but exploring and re-exploring, as if they'd been apart a year instead of a little more than a week. He'd always loved Duo's body-- and he loved the tight jeans Duo wore to show it off-- but there were times in touching him he felt like he was discovering everything new. The taught muscles in his stomach and back, his sharp elbows and the way his thumbs tasted like salt when Trowa licked them, the way Duo would curl his foot over Trowa's calf and drag it up to hook around his knee and trap him close. He felt sort of newly sensitive to it all, and it was the weight of a lot of years together coming to a point suddenly.

Duo slowed down first, the heel of his palm on the underside of Trowa's prick inching away, then falling flat to the mattress between them. Trowa rescued it, giving it a teasing nip. Duo smiled sleepily, and didn't let him go. Trowa let him keep hold, marveling a little at the sensation of it, how connected it made him feel, like he had a lifeline just by holding Duo's hand.

It wasn't going to get better than this.

And if it was going to get worse... better to do it before he let himself really start to think about how good it could be.

"Have you thought about maybe getting married?" he said.

Duo's hand spasmed a little in his. Too dark to see his face. "Yeah," he answered, a cautious moment after.

"So-- what do you think?"

Hard to breathe, coming to it. Not just for him. Duo wasn't breathing at all now. "Are you asking me?"

"Yeah. I'm asking you."

Duo's hand locked tight on his fingers. "Yes. Is what I think."

"Okay. Good."

Took a few seconds then. Long awful seconds. Then Duo exhaled hard, and rolled onto his chest. Manic press of his mouth to Trowa's, grinding at him, sucking him so hard it took the last of the breath out of him, too. He grappled Duo's body onto his, all long lean lines of him and his legs around his waist and hands gripping him like hot iron everywhere they touched until--

He eased away with a groan. "Baby. Stop. Stop a minute. Okay?"

Duo's fist on his dick paused. "You wanna be on top? Okay." He slid away, until Trowa grabbed him by the arm.

"I wanna talk."

"Oh. Yeah, sure." Duo sounded thrown. Trowa felt thrown himself. Head spinning, actually. What the hell was he doing? How could he ever-- this was too--

"You have to shut the hell up and hear all of this,” he said. “And you have to trust me. Because this might be the most important thing we've ever discussed."

The mood was totally gone. He was still hard, but it was cold fear now. He was holding Duo so hard it had to hurt, but Duo didn't make a single sound.

"The Council is going to refuse my resignation," he said.

It took Duo a moment to understand that. There was the barest nod from him.

"Une suggested that they might give my petition more consideration if my lifestyle had changed drastically. Fuck.” His carefully planned speech evaporated. He couldn't take not being able to see how Duo was reacting. “This isn't how I wanted to do this. I don't want you to think that just because it's advantageous that it's why I want this marriage."

And that was the blunder. He could have stabbed Duo and there would've been less hemorrhage. Duo had a quick mind and he understood that one immediately. Light enough to see that, how his face went blank and then wooden. His muscles were so tight Trowa was afraid of snapping his arm. With a difficult little breath, Duo said, "Okay."

"Is your answer still yes?"

Tiny nod. Another one, a little firmer.

"I don't expect you to believe me when I say I was going to ask you even before she suggested it." And just like that, he knew it was true. It had been true since that night Duo had come home, that day after his trial, had come back to Trowa's apartment and that was what made it a home, Duo being there with him. "I was."

"Yeah?" Quaver in the voice, locked down immediately. Forced levity. "You keep a good secret. I never guessed."

"I wanted to give us a little time. To adjust. To the house. To-- all the other shit we're facing."

"Good plan."

Make him happy, Heero said, as if that could be done. Earn him. Trowa tried to swallow, but his mouth was dry. "I'll prove it to you, eventually."

"You don't have to prove anything to me." Duo kissed him. Not the same kind of kiss, not the easy loving touch he'd just had a minute ago. He was really-- he couldn't tell-- if he'd done the right thing, being honest about the reasons, the impetus, or if he should have lied to protect him. If he'd ruined everything. The only sure thing was that if he hadn't told Duo and Duo had found out one day--

"A year ago--” His fingers tingled releasing Duo's arm, that's how hard he'd been holding, and he was almost afraid to let go, but he wanted to touch Duo's face, feel him near. “A year ago I would have just let you believe whatever you wanted to believe if it got me what I wanted. Our relationship-- our relationship is based on something different now."

"Yeah. Yes."

"I know there was no way to make this come out the way I meant it to." Duo's lips were parted under his fingertips, his jaw tense. "And I've been a liar all my life. But I wasn't lying when I said I wanted to make a formal lifetime commitment to you. It just sucks that it comes off like I'm only doing it to save my ass."

Duo overrode the last word with a harsh kiss. He wrapped his arms around Trowa's neck, lifting him off the pillows to do it, holding him down. Trowa didn't fight it. He was too busy trying not to faint from the relief. Duo kissed him allover his face, then back to his mouth again, hard enough to numb him.

"We'll have to invite the guys." Duo gripped Trowa's hair in both fists, then palmed it down. "House-warming-slash-- what should we call it?"

"It's about fucking time Barton smartened up and chained himself to the best thing that ever happened to him? Maybe that's a little long." Another kiss for that. Duo's eyes were wet. Trowa felt it, coming away where his knuckles brushed.

"I'm sorry," he said.


End file.
